• Question: why is water always level

    Asked by ledw to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 22 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Think of a glass of water. Gravity is pulling every molecule of that water downwards (towards the centre of the earth). So every bit of water will flow downwards as low as possible until is stopped, either by the glass it’s in or by other molecules of water that are lower down and in the way.

      Since every bit of water wants to get as low as possible, none of the water wants to be higher than any other bits so the top surface of the water is level.

      BUT if you had a reallly big glass then you would see that the top of the water is curved like the surface of the earth (just like the sea is curved).

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