Science in the kitchen.

A model of the motion of atoms that appeared purely by chance.

I found a square thick glass, obviously from the table. I brought it home, wiped it with acetone napkins, and then decided to wash it in the kitchen sink. I washed it.

And suddenly I saw an interesting picture: The glass was slightly larger than the bottom of the sink, and therefore, placed horizontally in it, it did not fit tightly to the bottom, but left a small gap between it and the bottom of the sink. And then I saw that the water running off the edges of the glass did not merge with it in streams, but formed some drops between it and the bottom, and these drops, continuously pulsating and glistening, were moving towards the drain hole. I liked such a lively scene of droplets moving like diffusing atoms.

Or electrons in a metal with a temperature gradient. In the center there is a cold zone, on the periphery there is a heated one, so the electrons shift towards the cold center and there they STOP shining and “disappear”. They are absorbed by “cold” atoms and lose their energy increment, forming a different configuration of their orbits. The potential energy of the deformed orbits of atoms is their thermal energy.

Anyone who wants and is curious can do the same experiment with any piece of glass, it is only important to choose the appropriate gap between it and the bottom of the sink. I noticed that the effect is better with warm water than with cold water. Obviously, the force of surface tension also plays a role here, more precisely, the force of capillary adhesion of water to glass.

In general, purely by chance, we got a funny model of moving particles of matter.

5 VIII 2026

P.S. If we call the discovered phenomenon more strictly scientifically, “hydrodynamically”, then it should sound something like this:

“The effect of auto-quantization of the liquid (or gas) flow during its transition from free flow to capillary flow.”

Since I have never seen a description of such a phenomenon in the literature available to me, is it possible that some new effects can be detected and discovered in the old, well-studied hydrodynamics?!