A fluid particle is a volume of fluid small enough to be treated as a point on the scale of the flow, yet large enough to contain a huge number of molecules, so that its density , pressure , temperature and mean velocity are well-defined averages (the mesoscopic scale, typically a micrometre). The continuum hypothesis assumes such a scale exists: the mean free path of the molecules must be much smaller than the scale of the flow, . In air at atmospheric pressure ; in a liquid is the molecular size. The fluid is then described by fields , , defined at every point.
Physics · Glossary