Beyond Boltzmann: The Potential Energy Distribution of Objects in the Atmosphere
Popular Physics
2020-01-08 v1 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
Estimates of the number and potential energy of molecules, aerosols, cloud droplets, insects, birds, planes and satellites in the atmosphere yield a distribution which is for potential energies below 10^2 kBT described by the Boltzmann distribution, but for the range from 10^2 kBT to 10^33 kBT by a power law with an exponent of approximately -1. An explanation for this surprising behavior is not found.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2001.02081,
title = {Beyond Boltzmann: The Potential Energy Distribution of Objects in the Atmosphere},
author = {Henry Hess},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.02081},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
2 pages, 1 figure