Question

Does Capillary action affect viscosity?

Answer 1

Hint: As a first step, you could define the given quantities, that is, the capillary action and also viscosity. You could then list down the factors that affect each of these quantities and may be the ways to measure them. Thereby, you will be able to get the answer to the given question.

Complete answer:
In the question, we are asked whether capillary action affects viscosity.
Firstly, we could define each of these concepts.
Capillary action basically is the tendency of the polar liquid to rise up into a certain narrow tube which is commonly called a capillary tube. This tube when kept in water, water rises in it and the height at which water rises depends on its diameter and temperature of water.
The resistance of a liquid to flow is known as viscosity. The liquid that flows readily is known to have low viscosity and those that flow very slowly are known to have high viscosity. Now, the most common ways that we evaluate the measure of viscosity of a liquid will be: (1) by measuring the time taken for the liquid to flow up a narrow vertical tube (2) by measuring the time that the steel balls fall through a certain volume of a liquid. We could conclude that the liquid has higher viscosity when the liquid moves up the tube very slowly.
So, we could conclude that the capillary action does indeed affect the viscosity. It is in fact one among the methods to determine how viscous a given liquid is.

Note:
Some low viscous fluids are gasoline, ethanol and water. That is, they flow up a narrow vertical tube much faster. Some highly viscous fluids are oil, molasses and maple syrup. They are grouped under this category as they take greater time to move up a capillary tube that is, their capillary action is slow.