250 Years of Brownian Motion

Brownian motion is the random movement of microscopic particles in a fluid, under bombardment of many solvent molecules. It was first observed by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown (1773-1858); this 1827 serendipitous discovery has sparked a plethora of important developments in many branches of science, fluids included. It suffices to mention the physical explanation of Einstein in 1905 leading to the mean square displacement of a Brownian particle; the experimental confirmation of Perrin in 1908 for colloidal particles (for which he got the Nobel prize in Physics in 1926); and the development of stochastic dynamical systems by Langevin in 1908, which has applications in virtual all areas of science.

This year just passes the 250 year anniversary of Robert Brown’s birth, and we invite contributions from any and all areas of Physics of Fluids.