In the theoretical derivation of Stokes’s Law the following five assumptions are made: (1) that the inhomogeneities in the medium are small in comparison with the size of the sphere; (2) that the sphere falls as it would in a medium of unlimited extent; (3) that the sphere is smooth and rigid; (4) that there is no slipping of the medium over the surface of the sphere; (5) that the velocity with which the sphere is moving is so small that the resistance to the motion is all due to the viscosity of the medium and not at all due to the inertia of such portion of the media as is being pushed forward by the motion of the sphere through it. If these conditions were all realized then Stokes’s Law ought to hold. Nevertheless, there existed up to the year 1910 no experimental work which showed that actual experimental results may be accurately predicted by means of the unmodified law, and Dr. H. D. Arnold accordingly undertook in the Ryerson Laboratory to test how accurately the rates of fall of minute spheres through water and alcohol might be predicted by means of it. His success in these experiments was largely due to the ingenuity which he displayed in producing accurately spherical droplets of rose-metal. This metal melts at about 82° C. and is quite fluid at the temperature of boiling water. Dr. Arnold placed some of this metal in a glass [Pg 96] tube drawn to form a capillary at one end and suspended the whole of the capillary tube in a glass tube some 70 cm. long and 3 cm. in diameter. He then filled the large tube with water and applied heat in such a way that the upper end was kept at about 100° C., while the lower end was at about 60°. He then forced the molten metal, by means of compressed air, out through the capillary into the hot water. It settled in the form of spray, the drops being sufficiently cooled by the time they reached the bottom to retain their spherical shape. This method depends for its success on the relatively slow motion of the spheres and on the small temperature gradient of the water through which they fall. The slow and uniform cooling tends to produce homogeneity of structure, while the low velocities allow the retention of very accurately spherical shape. In this way Dr. Arnold obtained spheres of radii from .002 cm. to .1 cm., which, when examined under the microscope, were found perfectly spherical and practically free from surface irregularities. He found that the slowest of these drops fell in liquids with a speed which could be computed from Stokes’s Law with an accuracy of a few tenths of 1 per cent, and he determined experimentally the limits of speed through which Stokes’s Law was valid.