Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Scalable Stamp Printing and Fabrication of Hemiwicking Surfaces
Published on: December 18, 2018
The fluid mechanics of poohsticks
Julyan H E Cartwright1,2, Oreste Piro3
1Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, CSIC-Universidad de Granada, 18100 Armilla, Granada, Spain.
Abstract:
The year 2019 marked the bicentenary of George Gabriel Stokes, who in 1851 described the drag-Stokes drag-on a body moving immersed in a fluid, and 2020 is the centenary of Christopher Robin Milne, for whom the game of poohsticks was invented; his father A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner, in which it was first described in print, appeared in 1928. So this is an apt moment to review the state of the art of the fluid mechanics of a solid body in a complex fluid flow, and one floating at the interface between two fluids in motion. Poohsticks pertains to the latter category, when the two fluids are water and air. This article is part of the theme issue 'Stokes at 200 (part 2)'.
Related Concept Videos
Steady, Laminar Flow in Circular Tubes
Steady, Laminar Flow Between Parallel Plates
Stokes' Law
The expression for the force on a solid spherical object in a fluid is called Stokes' law. Stokes' law is valid only...
Poiseuille's Law and Reynolds Number
Viscosity
The SI unit of viscosity is...
Couette Flow

