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Contact Angle


ContactAngle

The contact angle between a sphere and a tangent plane is the angle alpha between the normal to the sphere at the point of tangency and the basal plane with respect to which sphere cross sections are measured (i.e., a plane perpendicular to the chosen z-axis). In the above figure,

alpha=cos^(-1)(a/R)
(1)
=sin^(-1)((R-h)/R).
(2)

See also

Dihedral Angle, Normal Vector, Sphere, Spherical Cap, Tangent Plane

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Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Contact Angle." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ContactAngle.html

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