Ludwig Boltzmann

Overview

Ludwig Boltzmann held chairs in Graz, Vienna, Munich, and Leipzig, and spent his career arguing that the observable properties of matter follow from the mechanics of atoms. His central result relates entropy to the number of microscopic configurations consistent with a given macroscopic state, an equation carved on his gravestone. He also derived a transport equation describing how a gas approaches equilibrium, and defended it against the objection that mechanical laws are reversible while the approach to equilibrium is not; his answer, that the second law is statistical rather than absolute, is the one still given. Atoms were not directly observed in his lifetime and prominent colleagues rejected them, which left him professionally isolated. He died by suicide in 1906. Approach him through a modern account of statistical mechanics; his own papers are difficult and scattered.

Where to start reading

• Further Studies on the Thermal Equilibrium of Gas Molecules 1872

  Introduces the transport equation describing how a gas evolves toward equilibrium, and the quantity that decreases as it does so.

• Lectures on Gas Theory 1896-1898

  His two-volume presentation of the kinetic theory of gases, written partly as a defence of the atomic picture against its critics.

Part of

• Statistical mechanics
• Thermodynamics

Sources

1. Ludwig Boltzmann English Wikipedia
2. Boltzmann's Work in Statistical Physics Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
3. Ludwig Boltzmann Britannica