Definition of "diffusion" []

• The process of diffusing or the condition of being diffused. (noun)
• Needless profusion of words; prolixity. (noun)
• Physics The scattering of incident light by reflection from a rough surface. (noun)
• Physics The transmission of light through a translucent material. (noun)
• Physics The spontaneous intermingling of the particles of two or more substances as a result of random thermal motion. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The term diffusion applies both to dissemination of information about a new technology and dissemination of the technology itself; for instance, new cooking stoves."
• "Random diffusion is a type of stochastic process, so if the theory of cosmogenic drift is to be developed, and if observable predictions are to be derived from it, then it will be necessary to employ the mathematics of stochastic processes."
• "The simplest type of diffusion is Brownian motion, (also termed a Wiener process), which is a simple random walk in which the increments between random variables St have a normal distribution with a mean value of zero."