Related papers: A Theorem on Ellipses, an Integrable System and a …
Translation of Ludwig Boltzmann's paper "\"Uber die Eigenschaften monozyklischer und anderer damit verwandter Systeme" Crelles Journal 98. S. 68-94. 1884 u. 1885 from German into English. In this foundational paper Boltzmann introduced two…
We study the motion of a particle in a plane subject to an attractive central force with inverse-square law on one side of a wall at which it is reflected elastically. This model is a special case of a class of systems considered by…
Ludwig Boltzmann had a hunch that irreversibility exhibited by a macroscopic system arises from the reversible dynamics of its microscopic constituents. He derived a nonlinear integro-differential equation - now called the Boltzmann…
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Boltzmann explained how irreversible macroscopic laws, in particular the second law of thermodynamics, originate in the time-reversible laws of microscopic physics. Boltzmann's analysis,…
Boltzmann introduced the microcanonical ensemble in 1868, \cite{Bo868-a}, and immediately attempted to give an example of a system whose stationary states would be described by the emsemble (as suggested also by his ergodic hypothesis). The…
This paper analyzes the ergodic hypothesis in the context of Boltzmann's late work in statistical mechanics, where Boltzmann lays the foundations for what is today known as the typicality account. I argue that, based on the concepts of…
Boltzmann introduced in the 1870's a logarithmic measure for the connection between the thermodynamical entropy and the probabilities of the microscopic configurations of the system. His entropic functional for classical systems was…
L. Boltzmann proposed a billiard model with a planar central force problem reflected against a line not passing through the center. He asserted that such a system is ergodic, which thus illustrates his ergodic hypothesis. However, it has…
Boltzmann's struggle with a derivation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is sketched. So is his first derivation of the connection between entropy and probability in 1877. Planck's derivation and quantum mechanical modifications of…
We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) elastically colliding hard balls of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ on the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^\nu$, $\nu\ge2$. We prove the so called Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis, i. e. the full…
I will argue, pace a great many of my contemporaries, that there's something right about Boltzmann's attempt to ground the second law of thermodynamics in a suitably amended deterministic time-reversal invariant classical dynamics, and that…
In 1910 Einstein published a crucial aspect of his understanding of Boltzmann entropy. He essentially argued that the likelihood function of any system composed by two probabilistically independent subsystems {\it ought} to be factorizable…
We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) elastically colliding hard balls of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ on the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^\nu$, $\nu\ge2$. We prove the so called Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis, i. e. the full…
Boltzmann's entropy is slightly modified to make it suitable for discussing phase transitions in finite systems. As an example it is shown that the pendulum undergoes a second order phase transition when passing from a vibrational to a…
The controversial problem of an isolated system with an internal adiabatic wall is investigated with the use of a simple microscopic model and the Boltzmann equation. In the case of two infinite volume one-dimensional ideal fluids separated…
The issue of the thermodynamics of a system of distinguishable particles is discussed in this paper. In constructing the statistical mechanics of distinguishable particles from the definition of Boltzmann entropy, it is found that the…
We investigate the overdamped stochastic dynamics of a particle in an asymptotically flat external potential field, in contact with a thermal bath. For an infinite system size, the particles may escape the force field and diffuse freely at…
The kinetic theory of Maxwell and Boltzmann has been the subject of major scientific controversies. The alleged incompatibility between the reversible nature of the equations of classical mechanics and the increase of entropy, which, in the…
The ergodic hypothesis outgrew from the ancient conception of motion as periodic or quasi periodic. It did cause a revision of our views of motion, particularly through Boltzmann and Poincar\'e: we discuss how Boltmann's conception of…
Well before the atomistic nature of matter was experimentally established, Ludwig Boltzmann's audacious effort to explain the macroscopic world of human experience in terms of the workings of an unseen microscopic world met with vigorous…