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The dyne is a unit of force used in a metric system based on the centimeter, gram, and second. It was replaced by the SI system, which uses meters and kilograms. One newton is equivalent to 100,000 dynes. Dynes are commonly used to measure surface tension, which can be expressed in newtons per meter or dynes per centimeter.
The dyne is a measure of force. It represents the amount of force required to increase the speed of an object with a mass of one gram, at a rate of one centimeter per second, in the space of one second. For example, if a one-gram object was moving at three centimeters per second, it would take a dyne of force applied for one second to raise the object’s speed to four centimeters per second.
The dyne is used as part of a system of measurement that uses the centimeter, gram, and second, respectively, as the primary units of length, mass, and time. This system was one of the earliest metric systems and dates back to the 19th century. Eventually people discovered that these units were too small for many common measurements, such as the height of a house. Making such measurements in centimeters or grams has yielded numbers so large as to be unwieldy. The system was replaced by one using meters and kilograms, which developed into the SI system used today.
As an example of how much of a difference this makes, the primary unit for measuring force today is the newton, named after scientist Isaac Newton. One newton is equivalent to increasing the speed of an object with a mass of one kilogram by one meter per second in the space of one second. One newton is the same amount of force as 100,000 dynes.
The dyne is usually listed using the symbol “dyn”, in the same way that “kg” represents a kilogram. Its name comes from dynamis, a Greek word meaning power or strength. This means that it shares its linguistic origin with words like dynamo.
The most common use of din is in surface tension. This is the effect by which a liquid recomposes itself to have the smallest possible surface area. An example of this is how water that lands on a flat, non-permeable surface will form into spherical droplets. Another example is how water from a dripping faucet will spread out through the faucet opening and stretch until it falls in a droplet. Surface tension is also found in the water strider, an insect that is able to exploit surface tension by effectively gripping the surface of the water with its feet, thus walking on the water.
Surface tension is measured as a force along a horizontal line. The most common and standard way to measure this is in newtons per metre. However, in some cases people will express surface tension in the form of dynes per centimetre. While not standard practice, using dynes may be more practical in these cases as the digits may represent only a small fraction of a newton per metre.
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