What is Brownian motion? | The Chemistry Journey | The Fuse School

Brownian motion is, according to Wikipedia, the "random motion of particles suspended in a fluid (be that a liquid or a gas) resulting from their collision with the fast-moving atoms or molecules in the gas or liquid."

This was named after Robert Brown (who would have guessed "Brownian theory" was named after someone named "Brown"?). Anyway, in 1827, while squire Brown was peering through a microscope at particles trapped in cavities inside pollen grains in water, he made note that the particles moved through the water. He saw no mechanism for this movement. Why did they move? No answers at first.

However, in 1905, physicist Albert Einstein, in an epic move to be a smart aleck, published a paper that explained how motion that Brown observed occurred. It occurred by the pollen being moved by the water molecules. Later on, someone even smugger than Einstein actually received a Nobel Prize, in 1908, for related work on the subject: French physicist Jean Perrin, He noted that the direction of the force of the atomic bombardment is constantly changing, and at different times the particle is hit more on one side than another, leading to the seemingly random nature of the motion. Can you believe they gave the guy a Nobel Prize for that? Well, it was pretty clever.

Discovery Channel: Einstein, Scientist for the Ages

Albert Einstein gave the world so much understanding about science, and about ourselves. He is someone whose work should be remembered, and life celebrated.

Albert Einstein Documentary HD

This is a wonderful biography of the immortal Albert Einstein. In this age of people knowing so little, it is a relief from the world we live in to remember when some people were bright. I hyper-linked Einstein's name so most Americans would know who he is these days.

Hawking challnges existence of black holes in new theory

Physicist Stephen Hawking claims there is no such thing as black holes, but instead Hawking seeks to redefine what does exist in place of the black holes he believes does not exist. According to Hawking, in their place Hawking theorizes of a more benign "apparent horizon," which temporarily holds matter and energy prisoner and then releases them in a more "garbled form."


Hawking points out that in "classical theory," being Einstein's Theory of Relativity, black holes, or "event horizons," possess qualities where nothing can escape, not even light.


Yet, in this theory, Hawking's view comes into conflict with the Theory of Relativity, proposed by physicist Albert Einstein in his landmark June, 1905 work titled "The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," later re-named the "Special Theory of Relativity." Subsequently, Einstein published his "General Theory of Relativity," in 1907, to address gravitational effects on light on Earth (with gravitational acceleration).


In his Special Theory of Relativity, two dynamics of physics came together for the first time under one roof, so to speak. First, the inclusion of the Principle of Relativity of Motion and the speed of light (accepted as a principle of nature).


I am a layman. While I do possess a graduate degree, it is in the field of religion. So, I am not the one to argue the credibility of any theory. I merely read those theories with some interest. Nevertheless, so accepted is Einstein's Theory of Relativity (or perhaps more rightly 'theories') that it is of some note when it is challenged in any part. And, for those who are so inclined, it is certainly worth at least cursory study.