A theory of the random walk with “persistence” of movement of a point in a three-dimensional cubic lattice is presented from which explicit expressions for the moments of the distribution function for the displacements of an ensemble of points after N steps for any arbitrary initial average velocity are derived. The results are applied to the problem of small angle multiple scattering of particles on their passage through a material medium, and formulae for the mean square of the lateral displacements are obtained which, in first approximation, have the form of the expressions, generally used for evaluating the experimental results but, in higher approximation, indicate a deviation from this relationship for greater thickness of matter.

Another approach to the same problem of multiple scattering is further presented which is based on Kramer's stochastic differential equation for the distribution function for the position and velocities of an ensemble of particles in phase space. By this method formulae for the mean square of the scatter angles, the lateral displacements and the correlation products between these are derived. The first of these expressions shows again characteristic deviations from the usual ones for greater thickness of matter, the second coincides essentially with the expression obtained from the random walk theory.