“Thus, one may prove that, because of the atomic movement in systems consisting of arbitrarily many material points, there always exists a quantity which, due to these atomic movements, cannot increase, and this quantity agrees, up to a constant factor, exactly with the value that I found in [a paper published in 1871] for the well-known integral ∫dQ/T.”
An 1887 group photo (Ѻ), showing (standing, from the left): Walther Nernst, Heinrich Streintz, Svante Arrhenius, Hiecke, and (sitting, from the left): Aulinger, Albert von Ettingshausen, Boltzmann (seated at middle), Ignacij Klemencic, Hausmanninger. See also: epicenter genius. |
“Molecules are like to many individuals, having the most various states of motion, and the properties of gases only remain unaltered because the number of these molecules which on average have a given state of motion is constant.”
“The general struggle for existence of animate beings is not a struggle for raw materials – these, for organisms, are air, water and soil, all abundantly available – nor for energy, which exists in plenty in any body in the form of heat Q, but of a struggle for entropy S, which becomes available through the transition of energy from the hot sun to the cold earth.”
A photo of Boltzmann in his middle years. |
See main: Thermodynamics anecdotesIn thermodynamics folklore, an oft-heard comment is that the second law has something to do with pouring a glass of water into the sea. This stems from Boltzmann who in 1870 told English physicist John Strutt that the second law of thermodynamics has the same truth as the assertion that you cannot recover a tumbler of water thrown into the sea. [7]
The famous Boltzmann tombstone is the marker for the final resting place of Ludwig Boltzmann, who met his reaction end in 1906, by his own hand, located in the Vienna Central Cemetery, showing a bust of Boltzmann with the equation S = k log W chiseled in stone above. On the left is the name of his wife and one the right are the names of his three sons. The engraved tombstone was erected in the 1930s after the full significance of Boltzmann’s work had been recognized. |
“The proposition that all natural phenomena can ultimately be reduced to mechanical ones cannot even be taken as a useful working hypothesis: it is simply a mistake.”
“In a purely mechanical world there could be a before and after as we have in our world: the tree could become a shoot and seed again, the butterfly turn back into a caterpillar, the old man into a child. No explanation is given because of the fundamental property of the mechanical equations. The actual irreversibility of natural phenomena thus proves the existence of processes that cannot be described by mechanical equations and with this the verdict on scientific materialism is settled.”
See main: Founders of thermodynamics and suicideBoltzmann, who during his reaction existence (life) had a difficult time vindicating his theories, particular the supposition that atoms existed, was one of the several founders of thermodynamics to take meet their end by their own hand.
“In 1866, at the age of 22, Boltzmann wrote an article ‘On the Mechanical Meaning of the Second Law of the Theory of Heat’ in which he claimed to prove the second law of thermodynamics purely from dynamics, i.e. the second law was just a consequence of Newton's equations of motion. Two years later, in 1868, in a paper ‘Studies on the Equilibrium of the Kinetic Energy between Moving Material Points’ he follows Maxwell in introducing probability concepts into his mechanical considerations and discusses a generalization of Maxwell's equilibrium velocity distribution function for point particles in free space to the very general case that a number of material points move under the influence of forces for which a potential function exists, i.e. he derives the Maxwell-Boltzmann equilibrium distribution function.”— E.G.D. Cohen (2005), “Boltzmann and Einstein” [16]
“Goethe’s Faust is perhaps the greatest of all works of art.”— Ludwig Boltzmann (c.1890) [17]
“Was it a god that wrote these signs, revealing the hidden and mysterious forces of nature around me, which fill my heart with quiet joy?”— Ludwig Boltzmann (1893), in an epigraph (Ѻ) to his lectures on Maxwell’s theory (Ѻ) (Ѻ) ; inspired from the introductory monologue of Goethe’s Faust (Ѻ) [18]
“In Europe, a grief-stricken rich woman buys a dozen cats, while in America she builds a university.”— Ludwig Boltzmann (c.1904), commentary (Ѻ) on Leland Stanford, his wife, and Stanford University