Sir George Stokes

Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, PRS (13 August 1819 – 1
February 1903) was an Anglo-Irish physicist and mathematician. Born in
County Sligo, Ireland, Stokes spent all of his career at the University of
Cambridge, where he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from
1849 until his death in 1903. As a physicist, Stokes made seminal
contributions to fluid dynamics, including the Navier-Stokes equation,
and to physical optics, with notable works on polarization and
fluorescence. As a mathematician, he formulated "Stokes' theorem" in
vector calculus and contributed to the theory of asymptotic expansions.

Stokes was made a baronet (hereditary knight) by the British

monarch in 1889. In 1893 he received the Royal Society's Copley Medal,
then the most prestigious scientific prize in the world, "for his
researches and discoveries in physical science". He represented
Cambridge University in the British House of Commons from 1887 to
1892, sitting as a Tory. Stokes also served as president of the Royal
Society from 1885 to 1890 and was briefly the Master of Pembroke
College, Cambridge.
 Sir George Stokes

George Gabriel Stokes

Born
13 August 1819
Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland
1 February 1903 (aged 83)
Died
Cambridge, England
Alma mater Pembroke College, Cambridge
Stokes's theorem
Navier–Stokes equations
Stokes's law
Stokes shift
Known for Stokes number
Stokes problem
Stokes relations
Stokes phenomenon
Stokes parameters
Smith's Prize (1841)
Awards Rumford Medal (1852)
Copley Medal (1893)
 Scientific career

Fields Mathematics and physics

Institutions Pembroke College, Cambridge
Academic
William Hopkins
advisors
Notable Lord Rayleigh
students Horace Lamb

Biography
George Stokes was the youngest son of the Reverend Gabriel Stokes, a
clergyman in the Church of Ireland who served as rector of Skreen, in
County Sligo. Stokes home life was strongly influenced by his father's
evangelical Protestantism. After attending schools in Skreen, Dublin,
and Bristol, in 1837 Stokes matriculated at Pembroke College,
Cambridge. Four years later he graduated as senior wrangler and first
Smith's prizeman, achievements that earned him election of a fellow of
the college. In accordance with the college statutes, Stokes had to
resign the fellowship when he married in 1857. Twelve years later,
under new statutes, he was re-elected to the fellowship and he
retained that place until 1902, when on the day before his 83rd
birthday, he was elected as the college's Master. Stokes did not hold
that position for long, for he died at Cambridge on 1 February the
following year, and was buried in the Mill Road cemetery.
Career
In 1849, Stokes was appointed to the Lucasian professorship of
mathematics at Cambridge, a position he held until his death in 1903. On
1 June 1899, the jubilee of this appointment was celebrated there in a
ceremony, which was attended by numerous delegates from European
and American universities. A commemorative gold medal was presented
to Stokes by the chancellor of the university and marble busts of Stokes
by Hamo Thornycroft were formally offered to Pembroke College and to
the university by Lord Kelvin. Stokes, who was made a baronet in 1889,
further served his university by representing it in parliament from 1887
to 1892 as one of the two members for the Cambridge University
constituency. During a portion of this period (1885–1890) he also was
president of the Royal Society, of which he had been one of the
secretaries since 1854. Since he was also Lucasian Professor at this time,
Stokes was the first person to hold all three positions simultaneously;
Newton held the same three, although not at the same time.

Stokes was the oldest of the trio of natural philosophers, James Clerk
Maxwell and Lord Kelvin being the other two, who especially
contributed to the fame of the Cambridge school of mathematical
physics in the middle of the 19th century. Stokes's original work began
about 1840, and from that date onwards the great extent of his output
was only less remarkable than the brilliance of its quality. The Royal
Society's catalogue of scientific papers gives the titles of over a hundred
memoirs by him published down to 1883. Some of these are only brief
notes, others are short controversial or corrective statements, but many
are long and elaborate treatises.
Stokes' law
In 1851, George Gabriel Stokes derived an expression, now known as
Stokes' law, for the frictional force – also called drag force – exerted on
spherical objects with very small Reynolds numbers in a viscous fluid.
Stokes' law is derived by solving the Stokes flow limit for small Reynolds
numbers of the Navies–Stokes equations.

Statement of the law

The force of viscosity on a small sphere moving through a viscous fluid
is given by:

where:

 Fd is the frictional force – known as Stokes' drag – acting on the

interface between the fluid and the particle
 η is the dynamic viscosity (some authors use the symbol μ)
 R is the radius of the spherical object
 v is the flow velocity relative to the object.

In SI units, Fd is given in newtons (= kg m s−2), η in Pa·s (= kg m−1 s−1),

R in meters, and v in m/s.

Stokes' law makes the following assumptions for the behavior of a

particle in a fluid:

 Laminar flow
 Spherical particles
 Homogeneous (uniform in composition) material
 Smooth surfaces
 Particles do not interfere with each other.

Note that for molecules Stokes' law is used to define their Stokes radius.
The CGS unit of kinematic viscosity was named "stokes" after his work.

Applications
Stokes' law is the basis of the falling-sphere viscometer, in which the
fluid is stationary in a vertical glass tube. A sphere of known size and
density is allowed to descend through the liquid. If correctly selected, it
reaches terminal velocity, which can be measured by the time it takes to
pass two marks on the tube. Electronic sensing can be used for opaque
fluids. Knowing the terminal velocity, the size and density of the sphere,
and the density of the liquid, Stokes' law can be used to calculate the
viscosity of the fluid. A series of steel ball bearings of different
diameters are normally used in the classic experiment to improve the
accuracy of the calculation. The school experiment uses glycerin or
golden syrup as the fluid, and the technique is used industrially to check
the viscosity of fluids used in processes. Several school experiments
often involve varying the temperature and/or concentration of the
substances used in order to demonstrate the effects this has on the
viscosity. Industrial methods include many different oils, and polymer
liquids such as solutions.

The importance of Stokes' law is illustrated by the fact that it played a

critical role in the research leading to at least three Nobel Prizes.

Stokes' law is important for understanding the swimming of

microorganisms and sperm; also, the sedimentation of small particles
and organisms in water, under the force of gravity.

In air, the same theory can be used to explain why small water droplets
(or ice crystals) can remain suspended in air (as clouds) until they grow
to a critical size and start falling as rain (or snow and hail). Similar use
of the equation can be made in the settlement of fine particles in water or
other fluids.
Terminal velocity of sphere falling in a fluid
Creeping flow past a falling sphere in a fluid (e.g., a droplet of fog falling
through the air): streamlines, drag force Fd and force by gravity Fg.

At terminal (or settling) velocity, the excess force Fg due to the

difference between the weight and buoyancy of the sphere (both caused
by gravity is given by:

with ρp and ρf the mass densities of the sphere and fluid, respectively,
and g the gravitational acceleration. Requiring the force balance Fd = Fg
and solving for the velocity v gives the terminal velocity vs. Note that
since the excess force increases as R3 and Stokes' drag increases as R,
the terminal velocity increases as R2 and thus varies greatly with particle
size as shown below. If the particle is falling in the viscous fluid under
its own weight, then a terminal velocity, or settling velocity, is reached
when this frictional force combined with the buoyant force exactly
balances the gravitational force. This velocity v (m/s) is given by:

(vertically downwards if ρp > ρf, upwards if ρp < ρf ), where:

 g is the gravitational acceleration (m/s2)

 R is the radius of the spherical particle.
 ρp is the mass density of the particles (kg/m3)
 ρf is the mass density of the fluid (kg/m3)
 μ is the dynamic viscosity (kg/m*s).
Steady Stokes flow
In Stokes flow, at very low Reynolds number, the convective
acceleration terms in the Navier–Stokes equations are neglected. Then
the flow equations become, for an incompressible steady flow:

where:

 p is the fluid pressure (in Pa),

 u is the flow velocity (in m/s), and
 ω is the vorticity (in s−1), defined as

By using some vector calculus identities, these equations can be shown

to result in Laplace's equations for the pressure and each of the
components of the vorticity vector:

Additional forces like those by gravity and buoyancy have not been
taken into account, but can easily be added since the above equations are
linear, so linear superposition of solutions and associated forces can be
applied.

Flow around a sphere

Streamlines of creeping flow past a sphere in a fluid. Isocontours of the
ψ function (values in contour labels).

For the case of a sphere in a uniform far field flow, it is advantageous to

use a cylindrical coordinate system ( r , φ , z ). The z–axis is through the
centre of the sphere and aligned with the mean flow direction, while r is
the radius as measured perpendicular to the z–axis. The origin is at the
sphere centre. Because the flow is axisymmetric around the z–axis, it is
independent of the azimuth φ.

In this cylindrical coordinate system, the incompressible flow can be

described with a Stokes stream function ψ, depending on r and z:

with ur and uz the flow velocity components in the r and z direction,

respectively. The azimuthal velocity component in the φ–direction is
equal to zero, in this axisymmetric case. The volume flux, through a tube
bounded by a surface of some constant value ψ, is equal to 2π ψ and is
constant. For this case of an axisymmetric flow, the only non-zero
component of the vorticity vector ω is the azimuthal φ–component ωφ

The Laplace operator, applied to the vorticity ωφ, becomes in this

cylindrical coordinate system with axisymmetry:

From the previous two equations, and with the appropriate boundary
conditions, for a far-field uniform-flow velocity u in the z–direction and
a sphere of radius R, the solution is found to be
The viscous force per unit area σ, exerted by the flow on the surface on
the sphere, is in the z–direction everywhere. More strikingly, it has also
the same value everywhere on the sphere:

with ez the unit vector in the z–direction. For other shapes than spherical,
σ is not constant along the body surface. Integration of the viscous force
per unit area σ over the sphere surface gives the frictional force Fd
according to Stokes' law.