Microscopic particles in liquid or gas undergo Brownian motion – jittery, random movements that are the result of countless collisions with neighbouring molecules.
Einstein studied this motion, and in 1907, he predicted that a microscopic particle's kinetic energy – and thus the square of its velocity – should be proportional to the temperature of its surroundings.
But directly testing this idea, which is called the equipartition theorem, is difficult to do for Brownian particles. That's because the many collisions experienced by the particle cause it to change speed and direction extremely quickly.
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