Gradient
Summary
This video leads students through an understanding of how the gradient is used in Fick’s first law to describe a relationship between the flux of particles and the concentration of particles. This relationship is explored by modeling the process of diffusion using random walkers. Finally, this law is applied to other real-world scenarios involving solid state diffusion and thermodynamics.
Learning Objectives
After watching this video students should be able to:
- Recognize that the gradient vector points in the direction of maximum slope of a scalar function with magnitude equal to that slope.
- Describe the physicality of Fick’s first law as it applies to concentration gradients.
Funding provided by the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
Developed by the Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TLL) at MIT for SUTD
MIT © 2012
It is highly recommended that the video is paused when prompted so that students are able to attempt the activities on their own and then check their solutions against the video.
During the video, students will observe the development of a model using random walkers to explore concentration gradients and diffusion.
