In 1827 Robert Brown, a botanist, observed pollen grains and dust particles in aqueous suspension playing out a ceaseless dance under his microscope. It was not until the development of the kinetic theory of gases in the latter part of the 19th Century that Brownian movement was found to be caused by thermal motions of the molecules in the liquid environment of the particles. The quantitative behavior of Brownian particles in thermal equilibrium with the molecules of a liquid was analyzed by Albert Einstein in 1905. He later applied his results to the movement of ions in solution.
The random motions of charged particles can generate electrical noise in an electric circuit. These electrical variations were detected by J. B. Johnson in 1927. A quantitative theoretical treatment of the effect was provided by H. Nyquist in 1928.
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(2009). What's That Noise?. In: Leuchtag, H.R. (eds) Voltage-Sensitive Ion Channels. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5525-6_11
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