In deriving the first equation, Darken referenced Simgelskas and Kirkendall's experiment, which tested the mechanisms and rates of diffusion and gave rise to the concept now known as the Kirkendall effect. For the experiment, inert molybdenum wires were placed at the interface between copper and brass components, and the motion of the markers was monitored. The experiment supported the concept that a concentration gradient in a binary alloy would result in the different components having different velocities in the solid solution. The experiment showed that in brass zinc had a faster relative velocity than copper, since the molybdenum wires moved farther into the brass. In establishing the coordinate axes to evaluate the derivation, Darken refers back to Smigelskas and Kirkendall’s experiment which the inert wires were designated as the origin.
In respect to the derivation of the second equation, Darken referenced W. A. Johnson’s experiment on a gold–silver system, which was performed to determine the chemical diffusivity. In this experiment radioactive gold and silver isotopes were used to measure the diffusivity of gold and silver, because it was assumed that the radioactive isotopes have relatively the same mobility as the non-radioactive elements. If the gold–silver solution is assumed to behave ideally, it would be expected the diffusivities would also be equivalent. Therefore, the overall diffusion coefficient of the system would be the average of each components diffusivity; however, this was found not to be true. This finding led Darken to analyze Johnson's experiment and derive the equation for chemical diffusivity of binary solutions.