Do particles truly move randomly?

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(Just a preface that I tried /askscience to see but it was a bit complicated for me)

In the question I mean: do particles (eg gas) move truly randomly or is there a method behind the “random”?

Thank you!

In: Physics

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

At small enough scales yes, particles ‘move’ randomly. But this isn’t so much just how they move and more about existence itself. A lot of people will misconstrue the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle to be about measurement or some human influence but it is much more than that. The uncertainty in particle location and momentum, and therefore how it ‘moves’, is a fundamental property. It exists because there isn’t exact information about the location or momentum.

That isn’t to say we cant say on average how things move, we do that all the time. But at the smallest scales movement isn’t a defined property.

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