turbulence/brownian motion

[Sofia Oliveira]

Hello,
I'm a designer and i'm working on a project that envolves brownian motion.
As I don't know much about it I wonder if there is any relationship between
the idea of brownian motion and the experiences done by the caos
researchers about turbulence in liquids and gazes. Does the movement of
the particules in a brownian motion process have something to do with the
patterns that might exist in a fluid in a turbulence state?
It would be very helpfull if you could answer this question, i know it's not
cientific at all for I am not a cientist but this would save a lot of reading
and research.

Thanks

Sofia Oliveira

[ahmet omurtag]

a very short answer: whenever a particle has a random component in its
velocity its path can be described by using some statistical tools.
brownian motion and turbulence are two different physical processes
(first is molecular second is macroscopic process) but they lead to
dispersion behavior which is similar. for brownian motion you can look
at the collection of basic essays 'selected papers on noise and
stochastic processes' ed. by n.wax. for turbulent diffusion the book
'turbulence' by hinze is a starting point. most books on statistics will
contain brownian processes. chaos theory is a different research
tradition which is trying to explain both molecular and macroscopic
randomness. chaotic behavior also leads to dispersion similar to
brownian and turbulent dispersion. i hope this helps somewhat. good
luck.

ahmet omurtag

[Gerard Middleton]

Brownian motion is a stochastic process: it is unpredictable because at
each step a random direction and/or distance is chosen. Thus it is not
an example of nonlinear dynamical chaos, which (in theory) is
deterministic. Brownian motions have fractal properties, and probably
also multifractal properties -- and in that respect there is some
resemblance to turbulence. But they are really two different things.

--
Gerry Middleton
Department of Geology, McMaster University
Tel: (905) 525-9140 ext 24187 FAX 522-3141

[Ron Cresswell]

ahmet omurtag wrote:
>
>
> a very short answer: whenever a particle has a random component in its
> velocity its path can be described by using some statistical tools.
> brownian motion and turbulence are two different physical processes
> (first is molecular second is macroscopic process) but they lead to
> dispersion behavior which is similar. for brownian motion you can look
> at the collection of basic essays 'selected papers on noise and
> stochastic processes' ed. by n.wax. for turbulent diffusion the book
> 'turbulence' by hinze is a starting point. most books on statistics will
> contain brownian processes. chaos theory is a different research
> tradition which is trying to explain both molecular and macroscopic
> randomness. chaotic behavior also leads to dispersion similar to
> brownian and turbulent dispersion. i hope this helps somewhat. good
> luck.
>
> ahmet omurtag

Hinze as a starting point for a non-scientist? Good luck!

--
Ron Cresswell _--_|\
Compumod Pty Ltd / Oz \
PO Box A807, Sydney 2000 Ph(02)283 2577 \_.--._/
Ron.Cr...@compumod.com.au Fax(02)283 2585 V

[B}rd Krane]

Sofia Oliveira wrote:
>Hello,
>I'm a designer and i'm working on a project that envolves brownian

>....

Perhaps you could check out the article "Beyond Brownian Motion"
in Physics Today, Feb. 1996, pp 33. The article deals with Levy
flights which is a generalization of Brownian motion. Anyway, it
is a nice article written for a broader audience than what you find
in Phys Rev Letter or other research journals.

--
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Institute of Physics # Phone : + 47 22 85 56 66
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