On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, rad0 wrote:

> correctly or not.  When you have a gas confined
> to a, lets say a sphere, do the particles move around
> with a motion that is called 'Brownian Motion'??

Yes, you could describe it with that term.  The molecules in a gas will
move around due to thermal motions, with an energy of (3/2) kT. The
thermal motions of molecules are random, which is what Brownian Motion
essentially means.


> Is that what this term is used to describe??

The term is typically used to describe the random motion of particles
suspended in a liquid or a gas, as these particles will share in the
thermal motions of the medium.  So, Brownian motion refers to impacts by
molecules of the medium on suspended particles.  But again, since the
impacts are due to motion of the gas molecules, then you could also say
the gas molecules themselves exhibit Brownian motion.

I don't know offhand of any web references.

cheers,
Dave.

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