Q 10.2 Explain why
(b) Water on a clean glass surface tends to spread out while mercury on the same surface tends to form drops. (Put differently, water wets glass while mercury does not.)
Cohesive forces between water molecules is much lesser than adhesive forces between water and glass molecules and that's why water tends to spread out on glass whereas cohesive forces within mercury is comparable to adhesive forces between mercury and glass and that's why mercury tends to form drops.