Talk:Cheerios effect

A better name?

 * For the sake of the rest of the English speaking world (who might think that Cheerio effect refers to ones expanding waist line due to unhealthy diet of American breakfast cereals) would it be less USA-centric to incorporate it into a fresh article that covers: Floccation, conglomeration and agglomeration etc., Then redirect C E to that? --Aspro 20:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Cheerios effect
I've merged Cheerios effect into this article. Should the merge have gone the other way? I dunno. I just followed what the merge tag suggested on this. The following is from Talk:Cheerios effect. Jimp 04:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Bullshit?
Is this BS ? If there is a reference to a journal article, or evidence from another reliable published source, then I will believe it. Otherwise, it's going to be deleted. MP  (talk) 11:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Reference added. You don't need to be so confrontational. Try Googling for "cheerios effect" before calling something BS or threatening to delete a perfectly good article.

best, Robinh 15:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * This should be deleted and moved over to [wiktionary]. ( it a dic def. not an artical)
 * --Aspro 15:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. It's very descriptive for just a definition, plus it's a whole explanation on an object.199.224.81.132 18:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism
This article appears to plagiarize the information linked to (msnbc.com) and livescience.com. If it is not reworded or credited (if you can credit copying someone elses work) then it should be removed per wiki rules. Jawshoeaw 09:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)jawshoeaw

Redirections

 * I just added redirections from "Cheerio effect" and "The Cheerio effect" If anyone disagrees, just delete them.--199.224.81.132 23:46, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh wait....You need a username to make articles. Never mind. --199.224.81.132 23:46, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * In my opinion it should be listed as cheerios. The original authors titled the paper The "Cheerios Effect" and it was published that way. AIP.org refers to it as that in its press release. On a scientific level, the effect refers to attraction between objects, necessitating that there be more than one object.130.18.55.228 19:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of Which Bessel Function
In the original paper they state the force result listed in the article, "K1 is modified Bessel Function of first kind of order 1" and cite Abramowitz's Handbook of Mathematical Functions (p.374). The problem is Abramowitz does not list I and K as being functions of first or second kind, and every other source I've seen (including wikipedia's bessel page) refers to I as B. func. of the 1st kind and K as 2nd kind. The physics involved is a central force potential that drops to 0 at infinite distance which is what B. funct. of 2nd kind (K) does. sources: http://www.deas.harvard.edu/softmat/downloads/2005-13.pdf <--original article.

http://www.math.sfu.ca/~cbm/aands/frameindex.htm <-- abramowitz "handbook of mathematical functions" (p374)

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModifiedBesselFunctionoftheFirstKind.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModifiedBesselFunctionoftheSecondKind.html

130.18.55.228 19:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Humor
I like the part about cheeriomagnetization. I think I discovered the cherrio effect in speaking with someone the other day on the street. I kept saying cherrio but he wouldn't let me go. Lighten up Mr. B.S. the whole topic is intrinsically funny.

Image
I added the picture to this article, but a better picture would be nice. I took this one with my phone's camera. Pulu (talk) 05:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I added a new picture, I hope you find it more self-explanatory. Nekonaute (talk) 1:00PM, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposed move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Ucucha 16:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheerio effect → Cheerios effect — Cheerios effect is the name used by its "discoverers", and virtually all scientific references use that name (try Google Scholar for example). Also when one does a general Google search (excluding Wikipedia references) "Cheerios effect" is more common than "Cheerio effect". Pbech (talk) 13:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Simply south (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support although adding some more references to the article would certainly help. The article here was likely made based on the MSNBC article, which would explain the use of the singular name here. Mass media is naturally going to have that sort of effect. I note that the one scientific paper which is cited is entitled "The Cheerios effect", however. — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 16:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Explanation
The explanation for this so-called effect is a mash-up of actual science and nonsense. When I took my graduate class (chemistry - not engineering, materials science, or physics) there was no such thing (as a distinct named effect). This article claims that this effect is "in fluid mechanics". I doubt it, see #6 below... Can someone run a citation search (not a web search) to support the claim? The Explanation makes many incorrect statements: 1."A variety of weak forces act between liquid molecules to cause this effect." Is egregiously wrong. It is, obviously, the difference between the forces acting at the 3 phase interface that cause this effect. It certainly is not confined to a gas-liquid-solid interface. (As subsequently pointed out, air bubbles also demonstrate this effect). 2."...water molecules at the surface are pulled ... but experience only a weak outward pull from ..." more nonsense. It is the difference in the forces BETWEEN air-water and water-water that are determinative. Calling the MUTUAL force of attraction a "pull" "by" or "from" the air or water is nonsense. 3."Therefore, the surface of the water caves in slightly, forming a curve known as a meniscus." More nonsense! The meniscus is formed AT THE INTERFACE of 3 PHASES. The interface of a water-air 2-phase system is NOT curved (except when gravitational forces are large enough); it is flat, planar. 4."A floating object which is less dense than water, seeking the highest point, will thus find its way to the edges of the container." Utter rubbish! It is surface tension of the water which provides the force to move the two wetted surfaces together, thus minimizing the surface area of the water. Floating objects do not "seek" the highest point! 5. The picture of the paper clips clearly indicates that these objects are not floating, but are supported by surface tension, thus clearly contradicting the explanation. 6. I believe this "effect" is a frivolous description of well known physics, which is popular because it is pseudo-scientific. Science can be fun, no doubt. I don't have any trouble accepting this named effect (and its name) iff it is well defined (not here) and used. Google returns 499,000 hits (Oct 28, 2013) which is almost twice as many as "Ostwald ripening", a well accepted (if obscure) scientific term. I reviewed the first 50 hits and found ONLY the 2005 technical paper for Cheerios (excluding Wikipedia) and over 10 of the first 20 hits were journal articles for Ostwald Ripening. It should, therefore NOT be claimed to be a technical term (although perhaps one day it will become so), but a POPULAR DESCRIPTION. The entire article needs a rewrite by someone who actually understands surface physics. I understand that for the understanding of the general audience, a simplified explanation is appropriate...BUT that explanation should be consistent with the actual physics. Actually, we CAN have the best of both worlds, we can have a simple explanation (capillarity is nowhere mentioned here?!?!?) and use that to lead into the technical aspects.Abitslow (talk) 01:22, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Copyediting
As part of the cleanup drive I tried to clean up and tighten the wording as well as to generalize to a liquid rather than water. Kvom01 (talk) 14:14, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I removed the copyedit flag. Regardless of the debate surrounding the validity of this article, grammatically speaking the article is sound and does not need copyediting in my opinion. The revisions done in January 2015 seemed to have cleared it up. If someone disagrees with this evaluation, by all means let's discuss it - and feel free to put the copyedit flag back on the article. Superkid333 (talk) 04:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Description hard to underrstand, maybe inconsistent
The last sentence of section "Description" is at least hard to read, I could not understand it, and I think there are language and content level errors: "The impact is not recognizable in vessels and other vast floating articles on the grounds that the power of surface strain is moderately little at that scale. (The Casimir effect, with a comparative result, happens at a nanoscopic scale, vessels and other huge drifting protests in a rough ocean are liable to its established comparable. Both are brought about by waves, not surface pressure.)"

Could you take a look at it? Maybe it's so broken (or even vandalized) that it should better be deleted if it can not be fixed - but I'm too confused reading it to decide that. Volker Siegel (talk) 14:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Major rewrite
I've burned down much of the article and started over. I think it's a bit more coherent at this point. PianoDan (talk) 23:18, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making the article much clearer. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 19:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)