mean free path

American

noun

Physics, Chemistry.

the average distance that a particle travels between successive collisions with other particles.

mean free path British

noun

the average distance travelled by a particle, atom, etc, between collisions

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

mean free path Cultural

The average distance that an object (usually an atom or molecule) can move before colliding with something.

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mean free path

"Measuring the effective mean free path of the electrons is very challenging in the low kinetic energy region, as was done in this study, added Yin. "

From Science Daily ● Sep. 29, 2023

The mean free path is the average distance a molecule travels between collisions.

From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019

This energy is proportional to Xeλ when X is the electric force, e the charge on the corpuscle, and λ the mean free path.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 8 "Conduction, Electric" by Various

Thus from the table we infer that at a pressure of 17 mm. the mean free path is 1⁄325 cm.; hence at 1 mm. the mean free path of a corpuscle is 1⁄19 cm.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 8 "Conduction, Electric" by Various

The atoms have various vibrations, the extent of which is called the mean free path of vibration; greatest in hydrogen and least in the densest element.

From Second Sight A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance by Sepharial

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023