Related papers: Boltzmann's Approach to Statistical Mechanics

The issue of how time reversible microscopic dynamics gives rise to macroscopic irreversible processes has been a recurrent issue in Physics since the time of Boltzmann whose ideas shaped, and essentially resolved, such an apparent…

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…

All of the basic microsopic physical laws are time reversible. In contrast, the second law of thermodynamics, which is a macroscopic physical representation of the world, is able to describe irreversible processes in an isolated system…

Nonequilibrium thermodynamics of a general second-order stochastic system is investigated. We prove that at steady state, under inversion of velocities, the condition of time-reversibility over the phase space is equivalent to the…

The present paper is meant to give a simple introduction to the problem of the connection between microscopic dynamics and statistical laws. For sake of simplicity, we mostly refer to non-dissipative dynamics, since dissipation adds…

A geometric foundation thermo-statistics is presented with the only axiomatic assumption of Boltzmann's principle S(E,N,V)=k\ln W. This relates the entropy to the geometric area e^{S(E,N,V)/k} of the manifold of constant energy in the…

Boltzmann's Principle S = k ln W was repeatedly criticized by Einstein since it lacked a proper dynamical foundation in view of the thermal motion of the particles, out of which a physical system consists. This suggests, in particular, that…

J. Willard Gibbs published a book in 1902 on statistical mechanics that quickly received significant attention from his contemporaries because of the reputation that he had secured with his prior work on thermodynamics. People reading…

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…

In the mid-19th century, both the laws of mechanics and thermodynamics were known, and both appeared fundamental. This was changed by Boltzmann and Gibbs, who showed that thermodynamics can be *derived*, by applying mechanics to very large…

In the last decades the theory of large deviations has become a main tool in statistical mechanics especially in the study of non--equilibrium. In a rational reconstruction of the story one must recognize the ideal connection and debt of…

We brief{}ly review the connection between statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. We show that, in order to satisfy thermodynamics and its Legendre transformation mathematical frame, the celebrated Boltzmann-Gibbs~(BG) statistical…

Ergodicity, this is to say, dynamics whose time averages coincide with ensemble averages, naturally leads to Boltzmann-Gibbs (BG) statistical mechanics, hence to standard thermodynamics. This formalism has been at the basis of an enormous…

Calculations and mechanistic explanations for the probabilistic movement of objects at the highly relevant cm length scales has been lacking and overlooked due to the complexity of current techniques. Predicting the final-configuration…

This work explores Boltzmann's time hypothesis, which associates the perceived direction of "time flow" with the second law of thermodynamics. We discuss mechanisms that can be responsible for the action of the second law, for directional…

In statistical thermodynamics the 2nd law is properly spelled out in terms of conditioned probabilities. As such it makes the statement, that `entropy increases with time' without preferring a time direction. In this paper I try to explain…

The observed general time-asymmetric behavior of macroscopic systems -- embodied in the second law of thermodynamics -- arises naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws due to the great disparity between macro and micro-scales. More…

A pedagogical derivation of statistical mechanics from quantum mechanics is provided, by means of open quantum systems. Besides, a new definition of Boltzmann entropy for a quantum closed system is also given to count microstates in a way…

Conventional thermo-statistics address infinite homogeneous systems within the canonical ensemble. However, some 170 years ago the original motivation of thermodynamics was the description of steam engines, i.e. boiling water. Its essential…

The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases (or does not change) by time in an isolated system. As microscopic physical laws are reversible, the origin of irreversibility is not straightforward. Although the outcome of a…