Fun Science Idea

Set a glass full of water on some sort of platform. An empty glass is positioned besides the platform. A strip of paper towel or cloth has an end in each glass. Check the experiment every hour or so. It may take 24 hours or even longer but the water will be transferred from the full glass to the empty one.

Using more paper towel by forming it into a roll will speed up the process. Have the end of the roll in the upper glass extend all the way to the bottom of the glass so all the water will be transferred. Soaking the paper towel to begin with will get the flow going sooner.

This setup has been called a capillary siphon. A capillary is a narrow tube. A siphon is  a device which causes water to flow upward without the use of moving parts. The spaces between the paper fibers are similar to the inside surface of a narrow tube. The water is attracted to those surfaces and thereby pulled up, in this case up and out of the upper glass.

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