Diffusion of a particle in the Gaussian random-energy landscape: Einstein relation and analytical properties of...

Diffusion is the passive movement of substances down their concentration gradients—requiring no expenditure of cellular energy. Substances, such as molecules or ions, diffuse from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration in the cytosol or across membranes. Eventually, the concentration will even out, with the substance moving randomly but causing no net change in concentration. Such a state is called dynamic equilibrium, which is essential for maintaining overall...

Diffusion is a type of passive transport. In passive transport, a substance tends to move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration until the concentration is equal across the space. For example, take the diffusion of substances through the air. When someone opens a perfume bottle in a room filled with people, the perfume is at its highest concentration in the bottle and is at its lowest at the edges of the room. The perfume vapor will diffuse, or spread away, from the...

The ideal-gas equation, which is empirical, describes the behavior of gases by establishing relationships between their macroscopic properties. For example, Charles’ law states that volume and temperature are directly related. Gases, therefore, expand when heated at constant pressure. Although gas laws explain how the macroscopic properties change relative to one another, it does not explain the rationale behind it.

Although gaseous molecules travel at tremendous speeds (hundreds of meters per second), they collide with other gaseous molecules and travel in many different directions before reaching the desired target. At room temperature, a gaseous molecule will experience billions of collisions per second. The mean free path is the average distance a molecule travels between collisions. The mean free path increases with decreasing pressure; in general, the mean free path for a gaseous molecule will be...

The kinetic molecular theory qualitatively explains the behaviors described by the various gas laws. The postulates of this theory may be applied in a more quantitative fashion to derive these individual laws.

To calculate the other physical quantities in kinematics, we must introduce the time variable. The time variable allows us not only to state the position of the object during its motion, but also how fast it is moving. The speed at which an object is moving is given by the rate at which the position changes with time. For each position xi, we assign a particular time ti. If the details of the motion at each instant are not important, the rate is usually expressed as the average velocity. This...