The particles that make up liquids and gases do not remain fixed despite the stability of their media, unlike solids. Researchers at the CSIC have found that the molecules describe "extremely complex" streamlines, according to one of those responsible for the discovery, the researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences Alberto Enciso. In this way, together with Daniel Peralta, they have deciphered their trajectories by solving a mathematical problem that had been open since the 1960s.
The foundations of the work, published in the journal "Annals of Mathematics", date back some 250 years ago, when the Swiss physicist and mathematician Leonhard Euler postulated the equation for stationary fluids, which was baptized with his surname. Euler's work tried to analyze what laws of motion govern the behavior of the particles of a fluid in a steady state.
His research would therefore be applicable to the molecules that make up the content of a glass of water. Although the liquid is apparently stable, its particles are subjected to continuous movements within its medium. Although it was already suspected that the trajectories of molecules are not simple , this fact had not been proven mathematically until now .
