[net.physics] Thermodynamics and Statistics

don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell) (03/28/84)

The view that thermodynamics is more fundamental than statistical physics
sounds very much like the pre-atomic view.  The existance of atoms was
a matter of debate even at the turn of the century, and Boltzmann even
committed suicide because his theorys of statistical physics were not
accepted by the old guard.  Einstein's paper on brownian motion was one
of the final death blows to the anti-atomic school.  Brownian motion gives
direct evidence of the statistical fluxuations a the microscopic level.
.