On the Humble Origins of the Brownian Entropic Force

Recognition that certain forces arising from the averaging of the multiple impacts of a solute particle by the surrounding solvent particles undergoing random thermal motion can be of an entropic nature has led to the incorporation of these forces and their related entropies into theoretical protocols ranging from molecular-dynamics simulations to the modeling of quarkonium suppression in particle physics. Here we present a rigorous derivation of this Brownian entropic force by means of the classical Gibbs canonical partition function and in so doing provide a heuristic demonstration of its kinetic origin.