Drag coefficient

Imagine you are a car, riding along the road. As you move forward, air tries to slow you down – it's like running through water but the water is invisible. This resistance is called drag. When you try to push your hand through air, you can feel its resistance in your palm. This resistance depends on many things - how big your hand is, how fast you are moving, and what shape your hand is. Similarly for your car, the resistance will depend on how big it is, how fast it's moving and what shape it is.

The drag coefficient is a special number used to measure how much drag there is on a particular object, like a car or an airplane. The drag coefficient depends on the shape of the object – for example, an object that is chubby and round will have more drag than something long and skinny.

When designing a car, engineers want to decrease the drag coefficient as much as possible. They do this by streamlining the shape – making it more aerodynamic. This is why cars often have sloping shapes, which help air flow better over the car rather than slamming into it.

To sum it up, drag coefficient is just a measurement of how much air drags on an object. The lower the drag coefficient, the better the object can slice through the air and go faster while using less fuel.