Viscosity
The term 'viscosity' describes a material's property from a physicist's point of view. It is a fluid's thickness. Scientifically speaking, it is the measure of a fluid's internal flow resistance, the resistance to being deformed. The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to gradual deformation by shear stress or tensile stress.
For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness" . Viscosity is a property arising from collisions between neighboring particles in a fluid that are moving at different velocities.
When the fluid is forced through a tube, the particles which compose the fluid generally move more quickly near the tube's axis and more slowly near its walls: therefore some stress, (such as a pressure difference between the two ends of the tube), is needed to overcome the friction between particle layers to keep the fluid moving. For the same velocity pattern, the stress required is proportional to the fluid's viscosity.
Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's resistance to flow
It describes the internal friction of a moving fluid. A fluidwith large viscosity resists motion because its molecular makeup gives it a lot of internal friction. A fluid with low viscosity flows easily because its molecular makeup results in very little friction when it is in motion.
Gases also have viscosity, although it is a little harder to notice it in ordinary circumstances.
Kinematic viscosity
The kinematic viscosity is the ratio of the dynamic viscosity μ to the density of the fluidρ. It is usually denoted by the Greek letter nu (v).
v = u / pBulk viscosity
When a compressible fluid is compressed or expanded evenly, without shear, it may still exhibit a form of internal friction that resists its flow. These forces are related to the rate of compression or expansion by a factor σ, called the volume viscosity, bulk viscosity or second viscosity.
Dynamic viscosity
The dynamic (shear) viscosity of a fluid expresses its resistance to shearing flows, where adjacent layers move parallel to each other with different speeds. It can be defined through the idealized situation known as a Couette flow, where a layer of fluid is trapped between two horizontal plates, one fixed and one moving horizontally at constant speed . This fluid has to be homogeneous in the layer and at different shear stresses.
Example
Lets Consider 2 glasses one filled with water and the other filled with honey.
Water will flow down the glass very fast whereas honey will not flow as fast, this is because honey is more viscous than water. We need to apply a lot of force to make the honey flow. Because honey has the property of resisting motion. Viscosity comes in handy when there is relative motion between the layers of a fluid. Different layers are not moving at the same speed.