Professor Boltzmann's Letter on the Kinetic Theory of Gases
1895; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 51; Issue: 1329 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/051581a0
ISSN1476-4687
Autores Tópico(s)Quantum Mechanics and Applications
ResumoIN common, I am sure, with all the physical readers of NATURE, I have read Herr Boltzmann's letter with great interest. And I am glad to observe that, though he appears to think I differ from him, that part of his letter which chiefly deals with my criticism on Dr. Watson's idea of what “Boltzmann's Minimum Theorem” is, is simply putting forward, with all his great authority, the view for which I contended. But it is a little hard that Dr. Boltzmann should represent me as endeavouring to disprove his theorem when I expressly stated that while I did not know his proof, I supposed that it was all right. True, I said that I found it hard to conceive how any proof on the lines of Dr. Watson's could be valid because that proof appeared to me to be a purely dynamical proof, and I applied the reversibility argument to show that a purely dynamical proof was impossible, so that the H-theorem could not be a purely dynamical theorem; and after indicating the lines on which it appeared that there might be an average dynamical theorem, I asked if some one would say what the H-theorem really was.
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