Are you referring to Brownian motion? Well, if you had read even just the wikipedia page about it, you'd know the answer...
QUOTE (beast+Sep 7 2007, 01:43 AM)
Most would say Thermal Energy.
Thermal energy is not the reason.
Thermal energy is just light.
But it is indeed thermal energy.
No, thermal energy is not light. It is in fact kinetic energy of the particles composing a material.
QUOTE (beast+Sep 7 2007, 01:43 AM)
Kinetic energy?
Kinetic energy is based on mass and velocity.
Should the particle vibrate back and forth, it would violate the law of conservation of energy.
A particle won't vibrate if it were by itself. Brownian motion is a result of particles colliding among themselves. Whenever such a collision happens, both energy and momentum are conserved - they are just transferred from one particle to another.
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