An intricate, long, and occasionally heated debate surrounds Boltzmann's H-theorem (1872) and his combinatorial interpretation of the second law (1877). After almost a century of devoted and knowledgeable scholarship, there is still no agreement as to whether Boltzmann changed his view of the second law after Loschmidt's 1876 reversibility argument or whether he had already been holding a probabilistic conception for some years at that point. In this paper, I argue that there was no abrupt statistical turn. In the first part, I discuss the development of Boltzmann's research from 1868 to the formulation of the H-theorem. This reconstruction shows that Boltzmann adopted a pluralistic strategy based on the interplay between a kinetic and a combinatorial approach. Moreover, it shows that the extensive use of asymptotic conditions allowed Boltzmann to bracket the problem of exceptions. In the second part I suggest that both Loschmidt's challenge and Boltzmann's response to it did not concern the H-theorem. The close relation between the theorem and the reversibility argument is a consequence of later investigations on the subject.
...More
Article
Bordoni, Stafano;
(2013)
Routes Towards an Abstract Thermodynamics in the Late Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001320791/)
Article
Campisi, Michele;
(2005)
On the Mechanical Foundations of Thermodynamics: The Generalized Helmholtz Theorem
(/isis/citation/CBB000771640/)
Book
Eric Johnson;
(2018)
Anxiety and the Equation: Understanding Boltzmann's Entropy
(/isis/citation/CBB190762202/)
Article
van Strien, Marij;
(2013)
The Nineteenth Century Conflict between Mechanism and Irreversibility
(/isis/citation/CBB001213355/)
Article
Reiter, Wolfgang L.;
(2007)
In Memoriam Ludwig Boltzmann: A Life of Passion
(/isis/citation/CBB000850200/)
Book
Lindley, David;
(2001)
Boltzmann's Atom: The Great Debate that Launched a Revolution in Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB000301572/)
Book
Olivier Darrigol;
(2018)
Atoms, Mechanics, and Probability: Ludwig Boltzmann's Statistico-Mechanical Writings - An Exegesis
(/isis/citation/CBB560149274/)
Article
Boyd, T. James M.;
(2012)
George Hartley Bryan, Ludwig Boltzmann, and the Stability of Flight
(/isis/citation/CBB001220405/)
Article
Schmitt, Richard Henry;
(2011)
Models, Their Application, and Scientific Anticipation: Ludwig Boltzmann's Work as Tacit Knowing
(/isis/citation/CBB001034405/)
Article
Giora Hon;
Bernard R. Goldstein;
(2021)
Maxwell's role in turning the concept of model into the methodology of modeling
(/isis/citation/CBB799144703/)
Book
Don S. Lemons;
William R. Shanahan;
Louis J. Buchholtz;
(2022)
On the Trail of Blackbody Radiation: Max Planck and the Physics of his Era
(/isis/citation/CBB808300995/)
Book
Fasol-Boltzmann, I. M.;
Fasol, Gerhard;
(2006)
Ludwig Boltzmann (1844--1906): Zum hundertsten Todestag
(/isis/citation/CBB001022137/)
Article
Brown, Harvey R.;
Myrvold, Wayne;
Uffink, Jos;
(2009)
Boltzmann's H-Theorem, Its Discontents, and the Birth of Statistical Mechanics
(/isis/citation/CBB000933693/)
Article
Bächtold, Manuel;
(2010)
Saving Mach's View on Atoms
(/isis/citation/CBB001230063/)
Book
Blackmore, John T.;
(2010)
Ernst Mach's Prague (1867--1895) as a Human Adventure
(/isis/citation/CBB001024111/)
Chapter
Viard, Jérôme;
(2006)
L'élaboration de la signification physique de l'entropie, les contributions de Carnot, Clausius, Boltzmann
(/isis/citation/CBB001024286/)
Article
Lavis, D. A.;
(2005)
Boltzmann and Gibbs: An Attempted Reconciliation
(/isis/citation/CBB000771639/)
Book
Alexander Pechenkin;
(2018)
The History of Research on Chemical Periodic Processes
(/isis/citation/CBB757079672/)
Article
Photis Dais;
(2021)
Impact of Gibbs’ and Duhem’s approaches to thermodynamics on the development of chemical thermodynamics
(/isis/citation/CBB022163007/)
Book
Bartel, Hans-Georg;
Huebener, R. P.;
(2007)
Walther Nernst: Pioneer of Physics and of Chemistry
(/isis/citation/CBB000774127/)
Be the first to comment!