Ludwig Boltzmann Quotes (1844-1906)

“Who sees the future? Let us have free scope for all directions of research; away with dogmatism, either atomistic or anti-atomistic!”

“In this book I have tried... to make clearly comprehensible the path-breaking works of Clausius and Maxwell. The reader may not think badly of me for finding also a place for my own contributions. These were cited respectfully in Kirchhoff's lectures [on Maxwell's kinetic theory] and in Poincare’s Thermodynamique at the end, but were not utilized where they would have been relevant. From this I concluded that a brief presentation, as easily understood as possible, of some of the principal results of my efforts might not be superfluous. Of great influence on the content and presentation was what I have learned at the unforgettable meeting of the British Association in Oxford and the subsequent letters of numerous English scientists, some private and some published in Nature. I intend to follow Part I by a second part, where I will treat the van der Waals theory, gases with polyatomic molecules, and dissociation. ...Unfortunately it was often impossible to avoid the use of long formulas to express complicated trains of thought, and... to many who do not read over the whole work, the results will perhaps not seem to justify the effort expended. Aside from many results of pure mathematics which, though likewise apparently fruitless at first, later become useful in practical science as soon as our mental horizon has been broadened, even the complicated formulas of Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism were often considered useless before Hertz’s experiments. I hope this will not also be the general opinion concerning gas theory!”

“For a long time the celebrated theory of Boscovich was the ideal of physicists. According to his theory, bodies as well as the ether are aggregates of material points, acting together with forces, which are simple functions of their distances. ...When Lord Salisbury says that nature is a mystery, he means... that this simple conception of Boscovich is refuted almost in every branch of science, the Theory of Gases not excepted. The assumption that the gas molecules are aggregates of material points, in the sense of Boscovich, does not agree with the facts.”

“I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler.”

“Boltzmann’s Lectures on Gas Theory is an acknowledged masterpiece of theoretical physics... still... [of] considerable scientific value today. It contains a comprehensive exposition of the kinetic theory of gases by a scientist who devoted a large pail of his own career to it, and brought it very nearly to completion as a fundamental part of modern physics. ...Ludwig Boltzmann ...played a leading role in the nineteenth-century movement toward reducing the phenomena of heat, light, electricity, and magnetism to "matter and motion"—in other words, to atomic models based on Newtonian mechanics. His own greatest contribution was to show how... mechanics... previously ...regarded as deterministic and reversible in time, could be used to describe irreversible phenomena in the real world on a statistical basis. His original papers on the statistical interpretation of thermodynamics, the H-theorem, transport theory, thermal equilibrium, the equation of state of gases... occupy about 2,000 pages... [N]ot even the handful of experts on kinetic theory could claim to have read everything he wrote. ...Boltzmann decided to publish his lectures, in which the most important parts of the theory, including his ...contributions, were carefully explained. ...[H]e included his mature reflections and speculations on such questions as the nature of irreversibility and the justification for using statistical methods in physics. His Vorlesungen über Gastheorie was... the standard reference... for advanced researchers, ...[and] a popular textbook ...for the first quarter of the [20th] century ...”

“The influence of Quetelet's ideas spread throughout the sciences, even to the physical sciences. The two primary founders of the modern kinetic theory of gases, based on considerations of probability, were James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann. Both acknowledged their debt to Quetelet. ...historians generally consider the influence of the natural sciences on the social sciences, whereas in the case of Maxwell and Boltzmann, there is an influence of the social sciences on the natural sciences, as Theodore Porter has shown.”

“Boltzmann summarized most (but not all) of his work in a two volume treatise Vorlesungen Uber Gastheorie [1896, 1898]. This is one of the greatest books in the history of exact sciences and the reader is strongly advised to consult it. It is tough going but the rewards are great.”

“In 1902 he returned to his chair in theoretical physics... In addition to... mathematical physics, Boltzmann was given Mach's philosophy course to teach. His philosophy lectures quickly became famous with the audience... too large for the biggest lecture hall available. ...Boltzmann's fame is based on his invention of statistical mechanics... independently of Willard Gibbs. Their theories connected the properties and behaviour of atoms and molecules with... [those of] the substances of which they were the building blocks. ...Boltzmann obtained the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution in 1871 ...In 1884 ...Boltzmann ...showed how Josef Stefan's empirical T4 law for black body radiation ...could be derived from the principles of thermodynamics. ...[T]he Second Law of Thermodynamics...he derived from the principles of mechanics in the 1890s.”

“Maxwell... during the 1860s... showed that when the [molecular] velocities reached the bell-shaped distribution, no further net change was likely. (...Ludwig Boltzmann further elaborated... and strengthened Maxwell's results). Any specific molecule would speed up or slow down, but... other molecules would change in speed to compensate. When a gas reached that state... the gas was at equilibrium. ...[T]his notion of equilibrium is precisely analogous to the Nash equilibrium in game theory. ...[J]ust as the Nash equilibrium is typically a mixed set of strategies, a gas seeks an equilibrium state with a mixed distribution of molecular velocities.”

“Boltzmann... felt that all that we were really doing when we stated physical laws was using a series of linguistic representations of reality. To relate force and mass, as Newton had done in his laws of motion, was to relate labels in such a way that we could use the relations for predictive purposes. To read anything more into the terms force and mass was to presume more than we can know.”