Related papers: The Gibbs Paradox Revisited
The suggestion that particles of the same kind may be indistinguishable in a fundamental sense, even so that challenges to traditional notions of individuality and identity may arise, has first come up in the context of classical…
Identical classical particles are distinguishable. This distinguishability affects the number of ways W a macrostate can be realized on the micro-level, and from the relation S = k ln W leads to a non-extensive expression for the entropy.…
Gibbs paradox in the context of statistical mechanics addresses the issue of additivity of entropy of mixing gases. The usual discussion attributes the paradoxical situation to classical distinguishability of identical particles and credits…
This is a systematic review of the concept of indistinguishability in both classical and quantum mechanics, with particular attention to Gibbs' paradox. Section 1 is on the Gibbs paradox; section 2 is a defense of the concept of classical…
The Gibbs Paradox is essentially a set of open questions as to how sameness of gases or fluids (or masses, more generally) are to be treated in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. They have a variety of answers, some restricted to…
According to classical physics particles are basic building blocks of the world. Classical particles are distinguishable objects, individuated by physical characteristics. By contrast, in quantum mechanics the standard view is that…
The concept of indistinguishable particles in quantum theory is fundamental to questions of ontology. All ordinary matter is made of electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons and they are all indistinguishable particles. Yet the concept…
Colloidal particles are distinguishable. Moreover, their thermodynamic properties are extensive. Statistical Mechanics predicts such behaviour if one accepts that the configurational integral of a system of N colloids must be divided by N!.…
The symmetrization postulates of quantum mechanics (symmetry for bosons, antisymmetry for fermions) are usually taken to entail that \emph{quantum particles} of the same kind (e.g., electrons) are all in exactly the same state and therefore…
The concept of classical indistinguishability is analyzed and defended against a number of well-known criticisms, with particular attention to the Gibbs' paradox. Granted that it is as much at home in classical as in quantum statistical…
We study the problem of particle indistinguishability for the three cases known in nature: identical classical particles, identical bosons and identical fermions. By exploiting the fact that different types of particles are associated with…
We consider the possibility that all particles in the world are fundamentally identical, i.e., belong to the same species. Different masses, charges, spins, flavors, or colors then merely correspond to different quantum states of the same…
We introduce into classical mechanics the concept of non-discerned particles for particles that are identical, non-interacting and prepared in the same way. The non-discerned particles correspond to an action and a density which satisfy the…
If, in a system of identical particles, the one particle state is defined by the partial trace to one of the component spaces of the total Hilbert space, then all one particle states are identical. The particles are indistinguishable. This…
The classical Gibbs paradox concerns the entropy change upon mixing two gases. Whether an observer assigns an entropy increase to the process depends on their ability to distinguish the gases. A resolution is that an "ignorant" observer,…
The existence of indistinguishable quantum particles provides an explanation for various physical phenomena we observe in nature. We lay out a path for the study of indistinguishable particles in general probabilistic theories (GPTs) via…
Indistinguishability of particles is normally considered to be an inherently quantum property which cannot be possessed by a classical theory. However, Saunders has argued that this is incorrect, and that classically indistinguishable…
The Gibbs Mixing Paradox is a conceptual touchstone for understanding mixtures in statistical mechanics. While debates over the theoretical subtleties of particle distinguishability continue to this day, we seek to extend the discussion in…
It is shown that quantum systems of identical particles can be treated as if they were different when they are in well differentiated states. This simplifying assumption allows the consideration of quantum systems isolated from the rest of…
Two particles are identical if all their intrinsic properties, such as spin and charge, are the same, meaning that no quantum experiment can distinguish them. In addition to the well known principles of quantum mechanics, understanding…