Talk:Stokes' law

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was Do not move. —Wknight94 (talk) 00:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Stokes' lawStokes's Law – Currently, the main article is at Stokes' law and Stokes's Law redirects to it. The two should be reversed, since Stokes's Law is the gramatically correct name (see Saxon genitive). Capi 23:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support, I was the nominator. Capi 23:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose --Philbarker 16:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC).
• Oppose. Good research by Phil Barker below. Andrewa 19:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose on grounds of euphony, plus "Stokes' law" is What I Was Taught. --Trovatore 00:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, looks silly. Melchoir 23:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, Stokes' is how most texts write this. --Polaron | Talk 03:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

I'm not altogether happy about this one. Google seems to show that Stokes' law and Stokes law are more common than Stokes's law, although all three have currency. Brittanica goes with Stokes's law. Interesting. Andrewa 03:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

(you may have read some of this elsewhere) Are you going to put in a redirect request for Achilles' heel? Fowler's Modern English Usage ISBN 0198691157 has an article on "possive puzzles", the jist of which is that --s' used to be the norm and is still retained in poetic and reverential contexts; otherwise add the s, so Stokes' Law--it predates the 's usage, and is to some extent reverential. --Philbarker 16:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

ps, other --s' examples: Bayes' theorem, Reynolds number, War of Jenkins' Ear, St James' Park (but not St. James's Park) and Davey Jones' locker. Also see: Apostrophe#Possessive_forms_of_nouns_ending_in_s. --Philbarker 17:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC) (amended 1 September 2006)
Good points IMO, which should be added to the policies and guidelines. In my brief career in Physics, it was always Stokes' law or Stokes' Law when being formal (textbooks papers etc) and Stokes Law on the blackboard. So I'm thinking Brittanica is wrong here. Andrewa 19:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Quibble: "Reynolds number" is not a possessive; "Reynolds" is being used appositively, as in Gödel number (not Gödel's number). --Trovatore 01:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
you're only saying that because it's true :-) --Philbarker 08:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Units

thanks for the article - very helpful Suggest the metric units are chagned to the more universal "SI", rather than as shown. Jerryjoynson 08:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Symbols

Suggest that the symbol for velocity be changed to a common v... It took me a while to realise that the capital V there did not refer to volume. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.140.163.29 (talk) 21:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

A-level Physics

Stokes' law is a theme in some of the UK OCR A-level Physics coursework. This means that this article will get increased traffic for the time that students investigate it. Whilst this shouldn't be a problem, I ask that editors with knowledge of this subject please keep an eye on it to revert vandalism, misleading information and good-faith edits which contain untrue information.

I don't predict us having any troubles with this article - A-level Physics students are pretty mundane when it comes to vandalism - but I think it's worth keeping an eye on. And I thought you might appreciate the heads up! Greggers (tc) 18:03, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Grammar

Sorry to bring this up again, but I feel that the article should read "Stokes's law", regardless of both the popularity of an incorrect spelling and the formal use in a science paper instead of an English one.

I will bring this up continuously until I feel this issue has been resolved, instead of ended using logical fallacies and the like. 69.199.23.90 (talk) 20:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Both variants seem to be allowable, depending on which sources are used regarding style, see Apostrophe#Singular nouns ending with an "s" or "z" sound. A Google Scholar search shows that in scientific publications "Stokes' law" is far more common than "Stokes's law". -- Crowsnest (talk) 21:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Just because something is common does not mean that it is correct. I think we ought to change it, if only to create consistency throughout the entire encyclopedia. Looking at the page, I promounce the title "Stokeses law." If we're going to pronounce the letter, shouldn't we write it also? Just so that we remain consistent with the most important rule, i.e. "Put an apostrophe ess after every single noun to makeit possessive"?67.77.198.183 (talk) 00:03, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support - You may think that it looks silly but the fact is that Stokes' is incorrect and implies that there are many Stokes to which this law belongs to. The correct grammatical name is Stokes's Law, and any text book that gets this wrong should seriously consider learning the english language. 58.169.132.27 (talk) 07:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - This grammar issue is bothering me also. Why is Gauss's Law correct in Wikipedia but Stokes's Law incorrect?
• Support - It's a ludicrous issue, and often childish and embarassing that there ever was a debate at all. :/ — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 20:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The Law

Shouldn't it be more accurately expressed by replacement of 'V' for velocity by ${\displaystyle -|V|.{\hat {V}}}$? since, as it is, it could imply that the force acts in the same direction as the velocity. At least make it clear by replacing ${\displaystyle F_{d}}$ with ${\displaystyle |F_{d}|}$.

Also, 'V' could be more generally defined by 'relative' rather than the absolute velocity defined here, since that is merely a special case when the fluid is stationary. Hai2410 (talk) 10:40, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible errors

I disagree with:

 "eta is the fluid's kinematic viscosity (in St m2/s)"


It appears to me that eta is the dynamic viscosity (in Pa.s kg/m/s).

Also "mu" should be "eta" in the terminal velocity expression (second equation).

I don't want to change this before asking other people's opinion first.