FAR from holding sway over all other matter, the most massive black holes in
the Universe are being twirled around at random.
This celestial buffeting resembles Brownian motion—the jittery movement
of microscopic particles in a fluid, such as pollen grains suspended in water.
It was first described by the botanist Robert Brown in 1827 but only explained
by Einstein in 1905. According to Einstein, pollen grains move about randomly
because they are being bombarded by water molecules.
Now David Merritt of Rutgers University in New Jersey suggests the same
effect is happening on a much grander scale, in the…
