In physics and thermodynamics, the ergodic hypothesis says that, over long periods of time, the time spent by a particle in some region of the phase space of microstates with the same energy is proportional to the volume of this region, i.e., that all accessible microstates are equiprobable over a long period of time. A long period of time will depend on the time constants of the processes involved and the number of different components, both initial and possible. Use caution in assuming ergodic performance when the number of components, N, is large; it is likely that the time to completion will vary as 2^N. For complex biological systems, ergodic performance is seldom possible. The ergodic hypothesis is often assumed in statistical analysis. The analyst would assume that the average of a process parameter over time and the average over the statistical ensemble are the same. Right or not, the analyst assumes that it is as good to observe a process for a long time as sampling many independent realisations of the same process.

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