Overview
- Brings clarity to the subtle questions raised by the Second Law of thermodynamics and time's arrow
- Provides insights into the relationship between probability and the natural sciences
- Explores the various meanings of Entropy
Part of the book series: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics (ULNP)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- What is Thermodynamics?
- Foundations of Statistical Mechanics
- Understanding Entropy
- Entropy and Time's Arrow
- Objective and Subjective Probabilities
- Bayesianism in Physics
- Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics
- Fundamentals of Statistical Mechanics
- Basic Statistical Mechanics
- Undergraduate Statistical Mechanics Textbook
About this book
Many people, including physicists, are confused about what the Second Law of thermodynamics really means, about how it relates to the arrow of time, and about whether it can be derived from classical mechanics. They also wonder what entropy really is: Is it all about information? But, if so, then, what is its relation to fluxes of heat?
One might ask similar questions about probabilities: Do they express subjective judgments by us, humans, or do they reflect facts about the world, i.e. frequencies. And what notion of probability is used in the natural sciences, in particular statistical mechanics?
This book addresses all of these questions in the clear and pedagogical style for which the author is known. Although valuable as accompaniment to an undergraduate course on statistical mechanics or thermodynamics, it is not a standard course book. Instead it addresses both the essentials and the many subtle questions that are usually brushed under the carpet in such courses. As one of the most lucid accounts of the above questions, it provides enlightening reading for all those seeking answers, including students, lecturers, researchers and philosophers of science.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jean Bricmont (born in 1952) is a theoretical physicist, and a retired professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He works on statistical and mathematical physics. He is mostly known to the non-academic audience for co-authoring Fashionable Nonsense (also known as Intellectual Impostures) with Alan Sokal, in which they criticize relativism in the philosophy of science. He also published Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Sense and Nonsense with Springer.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Making Sense of Statistical Mechanics
Authors: Jean Bricmont
Series Title: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91794-4
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-91793-7Published: 12 February 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-91794-4Published: 11 February 2022
Series ISSN: 2192-4791
Series E-ISSN: 2192-4805
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 368
Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations, 12 illustrations in colour
Topics: Statistical Physics and Dynamical Systems, Thermodynamics, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics