In physics, the mean free path is the average distance travelled by a moving particle (such as an atom, a molecule, a photon) between successive impacts (collisions) which modify its direction or energy or other particle properties.
Read more about Mean Free Path: Derivation, Mean Free Path in Kinetic Theory, Mean Free Path in Radiography, Mean Free Path in Particle Physics, Mean Free Path in Nuclear Physics, Mean Free Path in Optics, Mean Free Path in Acoustics, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or path:
“But we still remember ... above all, the cool, free aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their fruit to us, though still green and crude,—the hard, round, glossy fruit, which, if not ripe, still was not poison, but New English too, brought hither, its ancestors, by ours once. These gentler trees imparted a half-civilized and twilight aspect to the otherwise barbarian land.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Ai! ai! we do worse! We are in a fix! And you’re out, Death let
you out, Death had the Mercy, you’re done with your century, done with God, done with the path thru it—”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)