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The Boltzmann distribution describes a single parameter (temperature) family of probability distributions over a state space; at any given temperature, the ratio of probabilities of two states depends on their difference in energy. The same…
The family of Boltzmann distributions is used in statistical mechanics to describe the distribution of states in systems with a given temperature. We give a novel characterization of this family as the unique one satisfying independence for…
Introducing the Boltzmann distribution very early in a statistical thermodynamics course (in the spirit of Feynmann) has many didactic advantages, in particular that of easily deriving the Gibbs entropy formula. In this note, a short…
The Boltzmann distribution (the most probable distribution) is one of the most important concepts used in physics, chemistry and biology. Suppose we put the system initially in one of the less probable state then the system will find the…
We present a concise derivation of the Boltzmann form for single-particle energy distributions in classical many-body Hamiltonian systems. The derivation relies on two physical facts: coarse-graining-scale invariance of the empirical…
The applicability of stochastic differential equations to thermodynamics is considered and a new form, different from the classical Ito and Stratonovich forms, is introduced. It is shown that the new presentation is more appropriate for the…
Boltzmann machine is a powerful tool for modeling probability distributions that govern the training data. A thermal equilibrium state is typically used for Boltzmann machine learning to obtain a suitable probability distribution. The…
This paper investigates the combinatorics that gives rise to the Boltzmann probability distribution. Despite being one of the most important distributions in physics and other fields of science, the mathematics of the underlying model of…
These lecture notes introduce some topics of classical statistical physics, particularly those that are relevant for neural networks and deep learning. Statistical physics is treated as a branch of probability theory or statistics, with the…
We present results of our investigation into student understanding of the physical significance and utility of the Boltzmann factor in several simple models. We identify various justifications, both correct and incorrect, that students use…
Boltzmann's principle is used to select the "most probable" realization (macrostate) of an isolated or closed thermodynamic system, containing a small number of particles ($N \llsp \infty$), for both classical and quantum statistics. The…
The paper moves a step towards the full integration of statistical mechanics and information theory. Starting from the assumption that the thermodynamical system is composed by particles whose quantized energies can be modelled as…
A Boltzmann machine is a stochastic neural network that has been extensively used in the layers of deep architectures for modern machine learning applications. In this paper, we develop a Boltzmann machine that is capable of modelling…
In this paper we explore the following question: can the probabilities constituting the quantum Boltzmann distribution, $P^B_n \propto e^{-E_n/kT}$, be derived from a requirement that the quantum configuration-space distribution for a…
We consider M systems (each an electron in a long square cylinder) uniformly arranged on a ring and with Coulomb interactions. Exact straightforward numerical time-dependent perturbation calculation of a single N-level ($\lesssim 7$)…
The image of physics is connected with simple "mechanical" deterministic events: that an apple always falls down, that force equals mass times acceleleration. Indeed, applications of such concept to social or historical problems go back two…
Several problems arising in Economics and Finance are analyzed using concepts and quantitative methods from Physics. Here is the abridged abstact: Chapter 1: By analogy with energy, the equilibrium probability distribution of money must…
We present a theory of particles, obeying intermediate statistics ("anyons"), interpolating between Bosons and Fermions, based on the principle of Detailed Balance. It is demonstrated that the scattering probabilities of identical particles…
This study shows that the generalized Boltzmann distribution is the only distribution mathematically consistent with thermodynamics when the system is described by an ensemble of a certain mathematical form. This mathematical form is very…
Quantum computing raises the possibility of solving a variety of problems in physics that are presently intractable. A number of such problems involves the physics of systems in or near thermal equilibrium. There are two main ways to…