The Correctness of the Simplified Bernoulli Trial (SBT) Collision Scheme of Calculations of Two-Dimensional Flows

Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) have developed rapidly in recent years in various technical fields that have increased their interest in the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. In this paper, we present a simple representation of the DSMC collision scheme and investigate the correctness of the Simplified Bernoulli Trial (SBT) collision scheme for the calculation of two-dimensional flows. The first part of the collision scheme, which determines collision pairs, is presented following the derivation of the expression for the mean free path and using the cumulative distribution function. Approaches and conclusions based on one-dimensional flows are not always directly applicable to two- and three-dimensional flows. We investigated SBT correctness by using the two-dimensional pressure-driven gas flow of monoatomic gas as a test case. We studied the influence of shuffling of the list of particles per cell (PPC) before the collision scheme’s execution, as well as the minimal and maximal number of PPC, on the correctness of the solution. The investigation showed that shuffling and the number of PPC played an important role in the correctness of SBT. Our recommendations are straightforwardly applicable to three-dimensional flows. Finally, we considered the mixing of two gases and compared the results available in the literature.

A context in which finite or unique ergodicity is generic

We show that for good measures, the set of homeomorphisms of Cantor space which preserve that measure and which have no invariant clopen sets contains a residual set of homeomorphisms which are uniquely ergodic. Additionally, we show that for refinable Bernoulli trial measures, the same set of homeomorphisms contains a residual set of homeomorphisms which admit only finitely many ergodic measures.

Bernoulli, Darwin, and Sagan: the probability of life on other planets

The recent discovery that billions of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy may be in circumstellar habitable zones has renewed speculation over the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The Drake equation is a probabilistic framework for estimating the number of technological advanced civilizations in our Galaxy; however, many of the equation's component probabilities are either unknown or have large error intervals. In this paper, a different method of examining this question is explored, one that replaces the various Drake factors with the single estimate for the probability of life existing on Earth. This relationship can be described by the binomial distribution if the presence of life on a given number of planets is equated to successes in a Bernoulli trial. The question of exoplanet life may then be reformulated as follows – given the probability of one or more independent successes for a given number of trials, what is the probability of two or more successes? Some of the implications of this approach for finding life on exoplanets are discussed.