Supervisor: Alberto Imparato

Title: Brownian motion

What does stock market fluctuations have in common with the movement of a confused drunkard? Besides sounding like the precursor to a bad punchline, these are both examples of dynamics that can be modeled using Brownian motion - a phenomenon attributed to the random motion of particles suspended in a liquid or gas. Brownian motion is due to collisions with molecules of the medium in which the particles are embedded. To the everyday 19th century scientist this was, however, not at all obvious. The scientific community was not yet convinced that everything was made of atoms. A firm believer in atoms, Albert Einstein, was the first one to successfully describe Brownian motion, providing convincing evidence for the existence of atoms and molecules. Through this talk, we will explore Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion and its experimental verification. Modern applications of Brownian motion will also be covered.