Random Walks
The study of long chain polymers has been a source of problems within the realms of statistical mechanics since about the 1950s. One of the reasons however that scientists were interested in their study is that the equations governing the behavior of a polymer chain were independent of the chain chemistry. What is more, the governing equation turns out to be a random walk, or diffusive walk, in space. Indeed, the Schrödinger equation is itself a diffusion equation in imaginary time, t' = it.
Read more about this topic: Statistical Mechanics
Famous quotes containing the words random and/or walks:
“Assemble, first, all casual bits and scraps
That may shake down into a world perhaps;
People this world, by chance created so,
With random persons whom you do not know—”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“She walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)