English

Ergodicity: a historical perspective. Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium

Statistical Mechanics 2016-10-06 v2

Abstract

A view on the physical meaning of the so called ergodic hypothesis: its role on the foundations of equilibrium statistical mechanics in mid '800, its interpretations and hints at its relevance for modern nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. Followed by appendices with detailed comments on the original papers.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.04239,
  title  = {Ergodicity: a historical perspective. Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium},
  author = {Giovanni Gallavotti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.04239},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

92 pages; 4 figures v2 changed figure in app D, typos corrected, some characters colors changed, and some rm character changed to slanted. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1311.6448

R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:32:42.978Z