at the start of this section. Diffusion from a point source in the anisotropic medium of white matter behaves in a similar fashion. The first pulse of the Stejskal Tanner diffusion gradient effectively labels some water molecules and the second pulse effectively shows their displacement due to diffusion. Each gradient direction applied measures the movement along the direction of that gradient. Six or more gradients are summed to get all the measurements needed to fill in the matrix, assuming it is symmetric above and below the diagonal (red subscripts). In 1848, Henri Hureau de Sénarmont applied a heated point to a polished crystal surface that had been coated with wax. In some materials that had "isotropic" structure, a ring of melt would spread across the surface in a circle. In anisotropic crystals the spread took the form of an ellipse. In three dimensions this spread is an ellipsoid. As Adolf Fick showed in the 1850s, diffusion exhibits many of the same patterns as those seen in the transfer of heat. Mathematics of ellipsoids At this point, it is helpful to consider the mathematics of ellipsoids. An ellipsoid can be described by the formula: ax2 + by2 + cz2 = 1. This equation describes a quadric surface. The relative values of a, b, and c determine if the quadric describes an ellipsoid or a hyperboloid. As it turns out, three more components can be added as follows: ax2 + by2 + cz2 + dyz + ezx + fxy = 1. Many combinations of a, b, c, d, e, and f still describe ellipsoids, but the additional components (d, e, f) describe the rotation of the ellipsoid relative to the orthogonal axes of the Cartesian coordinate system. These six variables can be represented by a matrix similar to the tensor matrix defined at the start of this section (since diffusion is symmetric, then we only need six instead of nine components—the components below the diagonal elements of the matrix are the same as the components above the diagonal). This is what is meant when it is stated that the components of a matrix of a second order tensor can be represented by an ellipsoid—if the diffusion values of the six terms of the quadric ellipsoid are placed into the matrix, this generates an ellipsoid angled off the orthogonal grid. Its shape will be more elongated if the relative anisotropy is high. When