Elsevier

Physics Letters A

Volume 174, Issue 3, 8 March 1993, Pages 216-219
Physics Letters A

Fluctuations in the length of wires☆

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Abstract

Considering the age and importance of Brownian motion, it is surprising that studies of the type described in this Letter have not become commonplace, because of the unexpected results. After securing at its top end, a wire of constant cross section was suspended vertically through a furnace. To the bottom end of the wire was attached a weight whose vertical position could be continuously monitored with a capacitive sensor invented by the author. At room temperature, the changes with time in a 0.6 m length wire were typically observed to be random, and the standard deviation about the mean was approximately 5×10−7m (0.5 μm). At elevated temperatures, however, it was not uncommon for the free end to execute repetitive length changes with a period of many seconds. Furthermore, the fluctuations in some of these samples showed reproducible temperature hysteresis. These unexpected results suggest cooperative phenomena involving long range ordered states of unknown origin.

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Cited by (2)

☆

This work was supported by a grant from Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, MI. The author's brother, Palmer Peters, was first to suggest that 1ƒ noise may derive from collective modes. The gold wire for these studies was provided by colleague David Lamp, who also assisted the work through useful discussions. Additional aid was provided by the TTU Clark Scholar program and its gifted high school student, Kyle Sechrist.

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