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Boltzmann. The Genius of Disorder

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The ABC’s of Science
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Abstract

Ernst Mach’s imperious voice rang out in the main hall of the University of Vienna: “Professor Boltzmann, I don’t think his atoms exist!” He was standing among the wooden benches of the second row, rather agitated, his long grizzled beard shaken by the movement of his head, a strange light in his very black eyes, and his finger pointed towards that big man at the bottom of the room, near the blackboard, who was looking at him in a puzzled manner from behind two very thick nearsighted lenses.

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Further Readings

  • S.G. Brush, The kind of motion we call heat: A History of the Kinetic Theory of Gases in the 19th Century (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1976)

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  • C. Cercignani, Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006)

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Correspondence to Giuseppe Mussardo .

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Mussardo, G. (2020). Boltzmann. The Genius of Disorder. In: The ABC’s of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55169-8_2

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