Surface Tension of Liquid Metals

Abstract

IN a communication in Nature of April 14, Messrs. Atterton and Hoar recorded the conclusion that “surface tension is approximately inversely proportional to atomic volume”. May I venture to recall that this is a conclusion which I put forward some thirty-seven years ago, based upon determinations of the surface tensions of some of the commoner metals, which I had made at the Royal Mint, by measuring the depths of depressions in carbon tubes of small bore¹. By plotting the reciprocals of the surface tensions of these metals against their atomic weights and side by side with their atomic volumes, the resemblance to Lothar Meyer's well-known curve became apparent. The resemblance was even closer when these reciprocals were plotted side by side with atomic volumes raised to the 2/3 power². I felt justified, therefore, in suggesting that the surface tensions of molten metals, like other properties, are periodic functions of their atomic weights and that they vary inversely as some function of their atomic volumes. Now that figures for the surface tensions of more elements are available, it is satisfactory to find that Messrs. Atterton and Hoar have arrived at the same conclusion.