h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

so here is my question to which i couldn't find an answer that is satisfying me: why does liquid helium II (or III i don't know exactly anymore) travel upwards the walls of a cup against earth's gravity ? i have seen it with my eyes but couldn't answer why it does so. i got some explanations in terms of quantum dynamics but this is just a formal thing.

Helium is lighter than air, so I suppose the helium would be changing into a gas at room temperature and so rise up the walls of the cup....

He's gone away now, Visitor...

You think so

This poor chap, I wonder how long he tormented himself with that question? Perhaps he died, not knowing. How terrible. We should all be collectively ashamed of ourselves.

Our Bad

Well, he did stick around till 2001 in the vain hope of an answer. Poor chap 2 years of torment

Mmm. Better that way, perhaps, since the answer given was wrong. It has to do with how the miniscus behaves. If you look at a glass of water it is very slightly higher at the edges than it is for the rest of the surface. The same effect is true for liquid helium but more so.

B

But isn't that surface tension, what you are describing?

I always thought it was because one version of liquid helium is a superfluid....
BCNU - Crescent