I got one...

Overheal

I was just wondering, would one giant droplet/sphere (of say water) have more/less/equal surface area as 1000+ smaller droplets comprised of the same volume?

amacachi

Overheal wrote: »

I was just wondering, would one giant droplet/sphere (of say water) have more/less/equal surface area as 1000+ smaller droplets comprised of the same volume?

Much, much less.

As an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon

Dumb

Overheal wrote: »

I was just wondering, would one giant droplet/sphere (of say water) have more/less/equal surface area as 1000+ smaller droplets comprised of the same volume?

Quite a bit more :rolleyes:

peanuthead

Can I phone a friend?

Victor

Area increases at x^2

Volume increases at x^3

So if you increase the diameter by 10 times, you increase surface area by 100 times and volume by 1000 times.

Ask yourself, if you chop an apple in two - does the volume change? No. Does the surface area change? Yes.

Fremen

Dumb wrote: »

Quite a bit more :rolleyes:

That rolleyes seemed a bit unnecessary.
The volume of a sphere is
(4/3) pi r^3
and surface area is
4 pi r^2

A sphere with radius r has eight times the volume of one with radius r/2, but the sphere with radius r only has four times the surface area. Thus, for the same volume, you double the surface area every time you half the radius.

Pherekydes

Parallel questions are:

Why are french fries higher in fat than chipped potatoes?
[ii]Why do babies need more clothes?

mathew

Dumb wrote: »

Quite a bit more :rolleyes:

Pretty sure you read the question wrong there..
OP wants to know would a big sphere have more or less surface area than the same amount of matter divided into many small spheres. The big one would clearly have much less surface area...

ZorbaTehZ

And this is also basically the reason why bile is so important in lipid digestion in the GIT tract.

Fremen

Pherekydes wrote: »

Parallel questions are:

Why are french fries higher in fat than chipped potatoes?
[ii]Why do babies need more clothes?

It also explains why spuds cook faster when you chop them in half.
Why are ice-cubes so big? Surely millions of tiny ones would cool your drink much faster.

evolving_doors

Fremen wrote: »

Why are ice-cubes so big? Surely millions of tiny ones would cool your drink much faster.

Too small and you'll swallow them in every gulp(slush puppy)..also try popping a million little ice cubes out of an ice tray...

Too big and you wont have enough space for the liquid...Try fitting a vodka and coke in you glass if the volume of your cube(ice cylinder!) was the same as your glass...

RoundTower

crushed ice is used in some cocktails (like a mojito or a caipirinha). Normally you don't want the ice to melt too fast or you will end up with a very watery drink.

Overheal

mathew wrote: »

Pretty sure you read the question wrong there..
OP wants to know would a big sphere have more or less surface area than the same amount of matter divided into many small spheres. The big one would clearly have much less surface area...

yep that clears it up thanks for everyones answerseses