ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Stokes' law

Stokes' Law is like how slow a feather falls compared to a rock. You know that a feather falls slowly, and a rock falls fast. But why does that happen? Well, there is something called viscosity, which is like a resistance the air has against an object moving through it. The thicker the air, the more viscosity it has.

Now imagine you have a glass of water with some dirt in it. If you stir it really fast, the dirt will go all over the place. But if you stop stirring, the dirt will slowly fall to the bottom of the glass. This happens because of gravity, which pulls things down, and viscosity, which slows things down. So the dirt particles move slowly through the water until they reach the bottom.

Stokes' Law is like a formula that tells us how fast a small particle will fall through a liquid, like water or oil. It takes into account the size and shape of the particle, as well as the viscosity of the liquid. The bigger and rounder the particle, the faster it falls. But if the liquid is thicker, or has more viscosity, the particle will fall more slowly.

So, in summary, Stokes' Law is a way to predict how fast particles will fall through liquids based on their size and the viscosity of the liquid. It's like watching your feather fall slowly through the thick air, or your dirt particles slowly settling to the bottom of a glass of water.