why does wetting my fingertips suddenly give them more grip?
In: Chemistry
Water is polar, meaning the molecules are charged on either end kind of like little microscopic magnets. This makes it kind of sticky. If you’ve sprayed water from a spray bottle, most of the time it sticks on the surface it hits.
It’s not so much that your finger gets grippier, it’s that the touched surface is wetted. Wetting reduces the surface tension, which is slippery. Rub your wet finger on glass for example, it is actually slipperier at first but when the glass becomes “wetted”, it squeaks. The difference between wetted and not is the difference between water sheeting or beading.
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