Surface tension

During a lovely visit recently by Jeannine's niece Rachel, we drove to a local lake to go swimming on a very hot day. For some reason we were unable to puzzle out, we were the only people at the beach. The water was perfect, and the sky blue with scattered clouds. On one side of the roped-off swimming area was a more weedy spot, a great breeding area for frogs. And there were lots of them. Here's one fine fellow (or gal... I don't know, really) who sat for several minutes while I sneaked up very close to snap his picture.



Jeannine mentioned that she liked the yellow lily pad flowers spotted among the water plants, so I resolved to take a shot of one of them. Just as I did...



... some kind of bug crawled out of it.

But of most interest to me in this photo is what I saw only after I got home and opened it on my computer. I was amazed at the way the edges of the lily pads interacted with the surface of the water, creating ripples almost half an inch wide around their edges, due to the surface tension. I don't think I'd ever noticed this before. -- PL