Article,
On the validity of Stokes' law at the molecular level
Chemical Physics Letters, 303 (5-6): 583 - 586 (1999)
DOI: DOI: 10.1016/S0009-2614(99)00266-3
Abstract
In order to investigate the dependence of the viscosity on the mass of the molecules in a liquid, and thus check the validity of Stokes' law for molecules, several molecular dynamics simulations of `water' molecules with different mass and different molecular mass distributions were performed. The viscosity is shown to be sensitive to the mass but less sensitive to the mass distribution. The product of diffusion coefficient and viscosity, which according to Stokes' law should be independent of the mass, varies. We may therefore conclude that Stokes' law is not valid for small molecules.
