A theory relating quantities in equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and microscopic and macroscopic quantities. The fluctuation–dissipation theorem was first derived for electrical circuits with noise in 1928 by Harry Nyquist; a general theorem in statistical mechanics was derived by Herbert Callen and Theodore Welton in 1951. The underlying principle of the fluctuation–dissipation theorem is that a nonequilibrium state may have been reached as a result of either a random fluctuation or an external force (such as an electric or magnetic field) and that the evolution towards equilibrium is the same in both cases (for a sufficiently small fluctuation). The fluctuation–dissipation theorem enables transport coefficients to be calculated in terms of response to external fields.