This is a picture of water and vegetable oil. This represents a hydrophobic substance repelling water. The term hydrophobic means "water fearing". Water is a polar molecule (a molecule with a net dipole of the opposing charges), and will only mix with other polar molecules (these are called hydrophilic molecules). A hydrophobic molecule is one where there is no net dipole of the charges in the molecule (also called nonpolar molecules). In this case vegetable oil is the hydrophobic substance because it is a nonpolar molecule. The atoms are arranged in such a way that no net dipole is present, thus basically inert to the net dipole that is present in polar molecules. The result is the vegetable oil repelling water (not mixing), and is seen on the blue plate.
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