Read · Brownian motion: from wandering to a measurable law · Results

§2 · Osmotic pressure from the molecular-kinetic theory

Particles just large enough to see under a microscope must wander, Einstein argues, and how far they wander in a given time would let us count molecules. Read the argument, and open any step it leaves out.

Draft explanation, not yet reviewed

This is newly written explanation in modern notation, and its editorial review is pending. It is not the German source, an English translation, or a complete edition of the paper. The German source face holds a machine-drafted transcription with hand correction that no one has reviewed yet, and the facsimile face shows the pinned journal pages; an English translation is not ready. The headings name the part of the argument each passage discusses; they are not a list of the paper’s paragraphs.

§2 · Osmotic pressure from the molecular-kinetic theory

How molecular theory gives the osmotic law without solving the motion

Einstein writes the free energy as F = -(RT/N) lg B, where B is an integral over every state of the system. He cannot compute B, but he needs only how it depends on the volume V* the particles are held in. If they move independently to a sufficient approximation, in a homogeneous liquid, with no forces on them, B is a factor J that does not depend on V* times V* to the power n, and the change of F with V* gives p = (RT/N)ν for dissolved molecules and suspended bodies alike.