Uso di simulazioni per studiare il moto browniano

After a brief historical introduction to Brownian motion, attention is given to the importance of this kind of motion when teaching about atomic structure of matter. Direct demonstrations in the school are difficult to show in a satisfactory and meaningful way, so a simulation program running on PC was developed. This allow students (i) to understand the necessity of introducing statistical methods in studying these phenomena, and (ii) to learn how Brownian displacements can lead to the measurement of Avogadro’s constant.