Related papers: Ludwig Edward Boltzmann
We review here the main contributions of Einstein to the quantum theory. To put them in perspective we first give an account of Physics as it was before him. It is followed by a brief account of the problem of black body radiation which…
From its very beginning, Quantum Theory developed contrary to the intentions of its creators. For Max Planck it marks the failure of a long-term research program, in which he tried to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics…
The Kelvin-Planck statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a stricture on the nature of heat receipt by any body suffering a cyclic process. It makes no mention of temperature or of entropy. Beginning with a Kelvin-Planck statement…
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…
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…
In the last decade, minimal kinetic models, and primarily the Lattice Boltmann equation, have met with significant success in the simulation of complex hydrodynamic phenomena, ranging from slow flows in grossly irregular geometries to fully…
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…
A numerical experiment of ideal stochastic motion of a particle subject to conservative forces and Gaussian noise reveals that the path probability depends exponentially on action. This distribution implies a fundamental principle…
In textbooks on statistical mechanics, one finds often arguments based on classical mechanics, phase space and ergodicity in order to justify the second law of thermodynamics. However, the basic equations of motion of classical mechanics…
The balance equations for thermodynamic quantities are derived from the nonlocal quantum kinetic equation. The nonlocal collisions lead to molecular contributions to the observables and currents. The corresponding correlated part of the…
The Dulong-Petit limiting law for the specific heats of solids, one of the first general results in thermodynamics, has provided Mendeleev with a powerful tool for devising the periodic table and gave an important support to Boltzmann's…
The paper deals with the generalization of both Boltzmann entropy and distribution in the light of most-probable interpretation of statistical equilibrium. The statistical analysis of the generalized entropy and distribution leads to some…
We model the time evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate, subject to a special periodically excited optical lattice, by a unitary quantum operator U on a Hilbert space H. If a certain parameter alpha = p/q, where p and q are coprime…
The primordial confrontation underlying the existence of our universe can be conceived as the battle between entropy and complexity. The law of ever-increasing entropy (Boltzmann H-theorem) evokes an irreversible, one-directional evolution…
This work reviews the understanding of the direction of time introduced by Hans Reichenbach, including the fundamental relation of the perceived flow of time to the second law of thermodynamics (i.e. the Boltzmann time hypothesis), and the…
Entropy is a quantity which is of great importance in physics and chemistry. The concept comes out of thermodynamics, proposed by Rudolf Clausius in his analysis of Carnot cycle and linked by Ludwig Boltzmann to the number of specific ways…
Equilibrium statistics of Hamiltonian systems is correctly described by the microcanonical ensemble. Classically this is the manifold of all points in the $N-$body phase space with the given total energy. Due to Boltzmann's principle,…
In classical general relativity described by Einstein-Hilbert gravity, black holes behave as thermodynamic objects. In particular, the laws of black hole mechanics can be interpreted as laws of thermodynamics. The first law of black hole…
In the scientific and engineering literature, the second law of thermodynamics is expressed in terms of the behavior of entropy in reversible and irreversible processes. According to the prevailing statistical mechanics interpretation 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…