0 - Historical sketch

Summary

Physical phenomena explicitly associated with condensed matter surfaces have been studied since antiquity. Perhaps the oldest written record of experience in this area appears in Babylonian cuneiform dating from the time of Hammurabi (Tabor, 1980). A form of divination, known today as lecanomancy, involved an examination of the properties of oil poured into a bowl of water. The detailed behavior of the spreading oil film led the diviner, or baru, to prophesy the outcome of military campaigns and the course of illness.

In later years, many observers commented on the fact that choppy waves can be calmed by pouring oil into the sea. In particular, Pliny's account was known to Benjamin Franklin when he began his controlled experiments during one of his frequent visits to England. Franklin's apparatus consisted of a bamboo cane with a hollow upper joint for storage of the oil.

At length being at Clapham, where there is, on the common, a large pond, which I observed one day to be very rough with the wind, I fetched out a cruet of oil, and dropped a little of it on the water. I saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface…the oil, though not more than a tea spoonful, produced an instant calm over a space several yards square, which spread amazingly and extended itself gradually till it reached the lee side, making all that quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a looking-glass.

(Seeger, 1973.)