Definition:Brownian Motion
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Definition
Brownian motion is the physical phenomenon of random jittery motion of microscopic particles suspended in a fluid, such as pollen grains in water.
This is caused by the random motion of the molecules of the fluid impacting on the particles.
It may be modelled as a stochastic process.
Also see
- Results about Brownian motion can be found here.
Source of Name
This entry was named for Robert Brown.
Historical Note
Brownian motion was first noticed by Robert Brown in $1827$.
He observed under a microscope that pollen grains moved erratically and seemingly randomly in a sort of zigzag path.
He confirmed that it was not a phenomenon of life, as he repeated the experiment with inorganic dust.
The term Brownian motion is now also used for the stochastic model that is used to describe such random movements.
Sources
- 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Brownian motion