自然魔法师：神奇的表面张力

Although with weak magnitudes, non-conventional forces, such as capillary force or surface tension of liquid, can cause a plethora of novel phenomena in nature. For instance, the lotus leaves capture excellent capability of self-cleaning, which is termed as “lotus effect”; butterflies and cicadas are able to fly in raining days and their wings are safe when exposed to water; shorebirds utilize the feeding mechanism of surface tension-induced transportation of prey, with its beak in a tweezering motion and ratchet effect; water striders can walk on water surfaces without effort. Capillary phenomena are normally related with our daily life, which hold great potential applications in so many fields, such as metallurgy, petroleum recycling, cosmetics deposition, pesticide production, coating and film, mineral flotation, micro- and nano-measurement. Based upon the inspirations of these colorful capillary and wetting phenomena in nature, we can learn from nature, then design and fabricate some new products, which lays the foundation of the cutting-edged subject. However, so far, there hasn’t been a book which is popular and easy to understand on capillary and wetting behaviors. Most of the published books dealing with surface tension are strongly professional, accompanied by a large amount of terminologies and formula derivations. As a consequence, many readers dare to read these kinds of materials. In the current book, we give up complex mathematical formulations, and instead, present a number of beautiful pictures to show the readers a miraculous world on capillarity and wetting. Our another aim is to illustrate the hidden physical mechanisms with common and understandable languages.

毛细力或表面张力等“非经典力”常能够以很微弱的作用引起大量的新奇现象，如荷叶的表面、蝴蝶和蝉的翅膀不容易被雨水沾湿，水鸟能通过新的毛细机制摄食，水黾在水面能够自由跑跳等。各种毛细现象也与人们的衣食住行息息相关，在冶金、石油回收、化妆品涂布、农药配制、镀层与涂层、矿物的浮选、微纳米测量等领域都起着重要作用。自然界中丰富多彩的毛细和浸润现象启发了人类的灵感，使他们通过“向自然学习”，进而仿生、制造出很多新奇的产品，从而产生了表面仿生学这一前沿交叉学科。但到目前为止，尚未能有一本通俗易懂的科普读物能够让读者领略到毛细和浸润现象的神奇之处。已出版的涉及到表面张力方面的著作大都专业性极强，用到了大量的专业术语和公式推导，因而常常让很多读者望而生畏。本书摒弃了复杂的数学描述，通过大量的精美图片向读者展示一个关于毛细和浸润的神奇世界，并拟以通俗易懂的语言来阐明这些现象背后蕴藏的物理机制。

表面张力诱发的毛细和润浸现象是当今前沿交叉学科的热点。毛细和表面浸润现象在碳纳米管阵列的粘附、生物体表面的超疏水功能、微机电系统的设计、石油的二次回收、农药的喷洒、自组装、动物特殊本领的仿生等领域大量存在。实际上，跟表面张力有关的现象大都与我们的日常生活息息相关，如我们洗衣用的洗涤剂、洗头的洗发水、化妆品、盖房子的水泥、眼睑分泌的眼泪等，都在一定程度上反映了液体浸润性质的重要性。但是对于普通读者而言，理解这些高深的学术论文，由于缺少专业知识的训练，他们往往会望而生畏。如何将这些深奥的知识阐述成通俗易懂的活生生的例子，力学工作者们责无旁贷。本项目定量研究表面浸润中的一些问题，然后把它们变成普通读者可以轻松弄懂的问题，从而全面展示给读者大众们。本项目以小见大，以点见面，从日常生活、工农业生产和自然界中的实例入手，阐述表面张力在这些现象中起到的作用。本项目完成了科普书《微力无边：神奇的毛细和浸润现象》初稿（已与清华大学出版社签订出版合同，预计2016年4月出版），并且发表与之相关的学术论文9篇（SCI4篇）。