How did Norbert Wiener use measure theory in the mathematical study of Brownian motion?
In the mathematical study of Brownian motion, Norbert Wiener utilized measure theory to provide the first mathematically rigorous treatment of the process in 1923.1
By applying measure-theoretic concepts to the space of all continuous functions on an interval, Wiener demonstrated that the set of differentiable functions within that space has a measure of zero. In probabilistic terms, this implies that a function chosen at random is almost certainly nondifferentiable.2
This discovery was pivotal for understanding the physical phenomenon of Brownian motion, as it proved that a particle undergoing such motion follows a path that is continuous but nowhere differentiable. Consequently, the particle lacks a well-defined velocity or tangent at any point in time, a finding that clarified the fundamental ideas originally proposed by Albert Einstein regarding the irregular motion of particles buffeted by molecules.12