Ask AI: define Hardy-Weinberg Law of equilibrium

The Hardy-Weinberg Law of Equilibrium (also known as the Hardy-Weinberg Principle or the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium) is a principle of population genetics that states that frequency of alleles (or genes) in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of other evolutionary influences. It is named after the British mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy and the German physician Wilhelm Weinberg, who independently discovered the principle in 1908. The law states that in a sufficiently large population with no evolutionary influences (such as mutation, migration or selection), the frequency of alleles or genes in a population will remain constant from generation to generation. This is because of two major assumptions—namely, that mating is random, and that all alleles are equally viable. In practice, this means that if p is the frequency of one particular allele in a population in any given generation, then p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1, where q is the frequency of the other allele.