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Boltzmanns Atom: The Great Debate That Launched A Revolution In Physics

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A century ago, many physicists doubted the existence of atoms. Atoms were a lucky guess by the ancient Greeks, but ever since Lucretius, the belief in atoms has implied a mechanical and even godless universe. Atoms were seen, in the nineteenth century, as hypothetical, even imaginary, entities which might help in the bookkeeping of following chemistry experiments, but had only a theoretical rather than a physical existence. It was the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann who showed that atoms really were the teensy particles that made the formulas for heat and gases so consistent. It is a pleasure to read _Boltzmann's Atom: The Great Debate that Launched a Revolution in Physics_ (The Free Press) by David Lindley, for it brings this important physicist to light and restores credit to a flawed but important thinker.

What Boltzmann did was to take kinetic theory (the concepts of how gases flow, exert pressure, and exhibit temperature) into the uncharted waters of assuming that tiny atoms were responsible for the manifestations of the theory. He insisted that atoms behaved in orderly and predictable ways that could be understood. Furthermore, he realized that although we could never measure the uncountable trillions of atoms in a liter of gas, their behavior could be understood by approximation using the laws of probability. We could not know exactly what all those atoms were doing, but probability explained it to a reliable approximation. The idea of probability demonstrating what is real was anathema to many scientists of the nineteenth century, and Lindley, in a cogent explanation of thermodynamics, tries to show both sides of the debate, which eventually, of course, Boltzmann was shown to have won.

Boltzmann in frustration had committed suicide before he could appreciate the verifications given to his work by Planck and Einstein, who built their own ideas upon his. It was decades before his work got its full acceptance; his grave in Vienna was neglected, and only in 1929 did he get a deserved resting place, with his simple, epochal formula for entropy carved on its monument. This fine book shows that being right in science does not mean being accepted as right, and that radical concepts may be attacked just for being different. Lindley writes, "Sometimes scientific ideas, like strange musical compositions or surrealistic dreams, need a ready audience as well as a creator." His book is a winning explanation of important scientific, biographical, and historical details.

Lindley has produced a very affecting and compelling account of the life and ideas of one of the most important figures of 19th century physics. The scientifically minded reader will thirst for equations and more technicalia, but such a reader probably already knows all of the relevant quantitative information. The brilliant Boltzmann paved the way for the revolutions of 20th century science, and did so as a deeply wounded human being. Lindley captures these duelling sides of Boltzmann in a masterful fashion. Highlighting Boltzmann's ongoing feud with the philosophy of Ernst Mach, Lindley shows a keen awareness of the shortcomings of the positivistic philosophy espoused by the renowned Austrian philosopher while not ceding the entire battle to the philosophically naive Boltzmann. Lindley's treatment is balanced and readable. Though he capably dismisses the superficial assumptions of the Mach school, he is not quite as successful in refuting the Kantian style of idealism that co-opted so much German thought of the 19th century. This shortcoming is to be expected in a book for general readers, but another 10 pages could have better unveiled the true weaknesses in Boltzmann's common sense realism, even for the uninitiated. No one who wishes to understand the shape of 20th century physics can afford to miss Boltzmann. And Lindley provides a superb introduction to the great man for the nonspecialist.

Author Lindley admits that the definitive biography of Ludwig Boltzmann still hasn't been written, but that doesn't make him any less an important figure in the history and development of physics and science in general.

Boltzmann is one of those rare figures that revolutionized the way scientists solve problems, choose problems -- indeed, the way they see the world. Einstein and Planck relied upon his work (and his conviction that the basic building blocks of matter were atoms) in their mathematical descriptions of Brownian motion and quantum theory (respectively).

But Boltzmann stands out as an industrial-age tragic figure. Despite winning international accolades, his greatest contributions were the focus of acerbic and unrelenting derision at home. He suffered from depression and a paralyzing lack of interpersonal confidence at various times during his life until eventually, he hung himself out a window.

That much we would know without this recent contribution to the story of his life. What makes this book remarkable is that it explains the cultural and social circumstances that might be described as the boundary conditions on Boltzmann's brain. Lindley explains the basic principles of all the major advances in physics in such a way that one can clearly make out the progression of thinking that evolved during the latter 19th century, the heyday of classical, Newtownian physics. He takes the mystery out of it. But he also makes it obvious that science does not operate in a cultural or political vacuum. It is not enough just to be right.

This is not a fawning accout of our tragic hero. Where Boltzmann is childish or petulant, Lindley tells us so. Nor does this tale degenerate into impossible, soap opera, paperback romance novel prose. (By contrast, consider the following excerpt from Maxwell's Demon: "We can imagine him in the dim candlelight of his cramped cabin, bent over with the agony of mental labor as perspiration dripped onto the books and papers piled all around him." Now, none of us were there. What good does it do to "imagine" all that?)

What Lindley has done is give us a wonderfully practical and insightful guide into the world of physics AND the world of academia at the same time. The 19th century debates (in which Boltzmann was more often than not at the center) about what constitutes legitimate science, what constitutes admissable argument or reasoning, what seperates hypothesis from theory from fact, about the nature of thermodynamics and whether it is a discipline that must rely upon the atomic "hypothesis" or be developed completely independently... these debates still shape the scholastic experience of engineers and physicists today!

In some ways, then, Boltzmann's Atom is a cautionary tale for future research faculty. It may hold special meaning for graduate students or philosophers of science, but readers of all background may agree with me that it is a fascinating study in both human frailty and the physical world around us.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and made important contributions to the kinetic theory of gases and thermodynamics. His work was based on the hypothesis of the existence of atoms, and was not accepted by the majority of scientists in those days. In the undergraduate physics course, our teacher told us that Boltzmann committed suicide. I wanted to know why he ended his life so sadly, but did not have a chance to learn about it for many years. David Lindley's book gave me a clear answer to my question and much more. I was intrigued by the story about the romance between Boltzmann, a youth "whose energies and thoughts were rarely distracted from physics," and Henriette von Aigentler, a young student at a teacher training college.

The author gives a readable account not only of Boltzmann's life and work but also of work and philosophy of those scientists who opposed his theory, developed a similar theory, or confirmed his hypothesis, James Clerk Maxwell, Wilhelm Ostwald, Ernst Mach, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Max Planck and Albert Einstein among them. Thus readers can get good understanding about Boltzmann's depressive mood and the significance and greatness of his work. The conflict between Boltzmann's atomic hypothesis and Mach's philosophy that science should be based only on observable facts is discussed especially in detail in this book.

Lindley teaches us that a similar conflict also exists nowadays. Namely, he writes in Chapter 7, ". . . now some physicists argue for the existence of superstrings and other curious entities that will never be seen directly. It remains, even now, a profound question whether the cost of proposing such very hypothetical objects as superstrings is sufficiently compensated by the benefit in understanding that the hypothesis brings." Here he insists the merit of Mach's critical attitude. In Postscript, however, the author stresses the legacy of Boltzmann's difficult victory over Mach in the modern idea of theoretical physics. Readers are thus made think by themselves about the merit and demerit of Mach's philosophy and physical hypotheses. The book would be interesting to both laypersons and working physicists.

Lindley states upfront that this book is not a proper biography. There is not much on Boltzmann's early life, and the account of his adult family life is very sketchy. Actually, I found this an advantage as I was most interested in the development of Boltzmann's physics and how Boltzmann related to other famous figures. Lindley is very good on this, showing exactly what Boltzmann's contributions were and how figures like Gibbs and Maxwell inspired him and were inspired by him. The accounts of his philosophical battle with Mach for the soul of physics were particularly intriguing - a battle that ended in Boltzmann's suicide. Mach had won the battle, but not the war. Einstein and others later came down on Boltzmann's side.

Of course Mach can't really be blamed for Boltzmann's suicide. Boltzmann comes across as a depressive, neurotic character. He could not relax, was forever traveling, and incessantly pursued social and academic advancement. When given the leading post at the University of Vienna he sought posts at German universities, but then didn't want to leave Vienna when he got them. This 'having his cake and eating it' situation left him distraught, torn between two great opportunities. Also, he became upset when followers of Mach did not admire him, even though his own followers held him in the greatest esteem.

It is surprising how much physics Lindley manages to convey without using equations. Differences between his ideas and others are conveyed with subtlety. For instance the difference between using a distribution of velocities and the earlier idea of just using average velocities for working out the statistical mechanics of gasses is brought across with verve. (Read the book if you don't know what I'm going on about!)

Lindley makes impressive use of original sources. You will find material in this book nowhere else in English as he translates many letters and works from the original German.

All in all, a must read. There are many popular books centered on Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Heisenberg. It is interesting to read a book where these giants hardly figure, and instead Boltzmann, Gibbs, Maxwell and Mach take center stage. So give yourself a novel treat and read about the harrowing fight for Boltzmann's atom.

Many people know the controversy of Darwin's law of evolution in the life sciences. There is similar controversy of the law of entropy in the physical sciences. Both controversies stem from the late 1800's and have to do with opinions about the hand of God vs. Nature. This book highlights the fascinating human and technical issues at the beginning of the theory of entropy.

In Boltzmann's Atom the author presents the story of Ludwig Boltzmann, Viennese physicist. Although several key scientists progressed the theories of Thermodynamics (heat movement), Boltzmann was the one who firmed up its theoretical mathematical foundation by linking it with physics mechanics models. The relevance of the word "Atom" in the title relates to the mechanics model... at the time, many physicists did not believe there were such things as (invisible) atoms and molecules bumping around energetically causing heat and temperature and pressure effects.

What really threw Boltzmann's contemporaries, and what Boltzmann himself did not really "get", was that his use of STATISTICAL equations foreshadowed the new probabilistic nature of the laws of physics. In a few decades this would hit with a bang with quantum mechanics, where even Einstein weighed in protestingly against "God playing dice".

I liked that I learned from this book more about the contemporary physicists in the late 1800's (which included James Clerk Maxwell of Maxwell's Equations and Max Planck of Planck's Constant) and what they worked on and argued about. I'm sad that Boltzmann suicided at the age of 62 and did not stick around a bit to see the tremendous impact his work has had on modern physics.

One other point stands clear relevant to evolution and entropy: There are discussions in SCIENCE and there are discussions in PHILOSOPHY, and there is VALUE in keeping DISTINCT what kind of discussion you are having!

David Lindley's book entitled "Boltzmann's Atom" is a disappointment. The book "dumbs-down" what should have been a fascinating and informative subject into a broad-brushed narrative providing little physical insight into Boltzmann's contributions to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. The problem can be summarized by two statistics: only one equation, (S= k log W) and no drawings. Apparently afraid of scaring away the "general reader" with technical ideas (that could have easily been incorporated into an appendix or two) the excitement of Boltzmann's discoveries are reduced to bland descriptions that belong in the New York Times Science section. What is surprising is that Mr. Lindley acknowledges he "leaned particularly" on Thomas Kuhn's fine book "Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity". Yet whereas Kuhn relies on the use of equations to show the evolution of the idea of discreet energy levels, there's not anything even remotely like this in "Boltzmann's Atom". In addition, three pages discussing Lucretius and additional space devoted to a windy description of the Habsburg Empire hints at an author in search of filler for his book. This book is suitable, in my opinion, if you want a quick overview of Boltzmann's life but compared to other biographies such as those by Abraham Pais it is lacking.

This is what is etched on his tombstone, his death a suicide. This was the statement that catapulted Boltzmann onto the Pantheon of Science. It confirmed that the abstract, heretofore unsubstantiated notion of entropy was due to the enormous number of `states' that a gas molecule can possibly exist in, and conveniently proportional to his constant k, previously derived from the Ideal Gas Law.
This is a tale (many claimed worthy of Shakespeare) of the clash among major figures of science and philosophy, as well as cultural prejudices in 19th century Europe. There are conflicts between real vs. abstract; absolute vs. probabilistic; observable vs. unseen; conservative vs. progressive; austere (Berlin) vs. bohemian (Vienna); emerging Prussia and superior Brits vs. declining Austria.
The existence of atoms had been postulated since Democritus, thousands of years ago. Dalton et al suspected it in their investigations of `equal proportions' in chemical reactions. But when Boltzmann insisted on its reality, he was widely ridiculed. He was already a high standing citizen of physics with his collaboration with Clausius on Kinetic theory (leading to the 1st Law of Thermodynamic) and with Maxwell on the distribution theorem of molecular motion. But many took these theories as conceptual views, and not physical reality. Boltzmann's insistence on the reality of atoms (and thus molecules) was met with skeptism, if not outright ridicule by hostile eminent luminaries such as Mach, Ostwald, Kelvin, Helmholtz and Kirchhoff, as well as celebrated supporters such as Clausius, Maxwell, and Stefan. With the enormous negative pressure, he hanged himself in 1906.
If he had only lived a few more years to see the undisputed fulfillment of his dream, by the next generation, led by Planck and Einstein.
If Planck is the father of Quantum Theory, then Boltzmann is the grandfather. Planck utilized Boltzmann's distribution ideas to formulate his celebrated Blackbody Solution. Einstein and Bose (for integer spin particles), along with Fermi and Dirac (for fractional spin particles) developed their quantum distributions modeled after the Maxwell- Boltzmann original. In addition, Einstein's explanation of Brownian Motion was based on Boltzmann's ideas.
Boltzmann was the first to champion probability and statistics into science, and no one has doubted him since his death. For Mr. Lindley, another great contribution to popular scientific literature. Although I need to point out that there a few chronologically inconsistent, and repetitious, but not altogether unconstructive anecdotes.

In David Lindley's elegant little biography of Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the less-famed (at least in English-speaking lands) creators of modern physics gets due attention.

Although no one scientist develops a revolutionary theory entirely on his own, Boltzmann's profound inquiries were most important in three fields: atomic theory, thermodynamics and quantum theory. His name is attached to two important equations, the Maxwell-Boltzmann equation and the Stefan-Boltzmann relation, and his formula for entropy (S = k log W) is as elegant and far-reaching as Einstein's more famous pithy statement. In answering questions about those things, he was the prime mover toward realizing that a statistical understanding of the material world must supplant the classical view that there are absolute truths.

"He had devoted the bulk of his intellectual life to a single question -- how does the behavior of atoms explain why hot things always cool down?"

Boltzmann was a difficult man, a bumpkin who (perhaps) lost a coveted job at Berlin because he used the wrong spoon at dinner with Frau von Helmholtz.

It used to be said that only three people in the world understood Einstein's general theory of relativity. Perhaps even fewer understood what Boltzmann was up to. Lindley suggests that even James Clerk Maxwell didn't quite get it. Even Boltzmann wavered a bit during his long career.

There were plenty of lesser physicists who were baffled, and more than a few, led by Ernst Mach, who were active enemies of Boltzmann and his kinetic theory. All this happened recently. Boltzmann died in 1906.

For 40 years Boltzmann had worked on kinetic theory of heat, which in his conception required atoms. Only within months of his death (by hanging) did Einstein produce a theory that converted the doubters to the actual existence of "hard, massy particles," as Newton had imagined must exist.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire plays a prominent role in all this. Not only was Boltzmann an employee of the state for most of his life, the fact that he got a chance was due not only to his own stubborn capacity but, according to Lindley, to a government policy of giving opportunity to young men (very rarely, women) of talent from humble backgrounds.

If we accept this, this was ironic, since the Austrian government was generally reckoned among the most conservative in Europe (and one could certainly argue that Lindley is stretching things to include the church in the core of liberalizing influences during the key period of Austria's modernization).

We are reminded that the modern segment of the Habsburg domain was tiny. Almost all the subjects of Franz Josef were illiterate workers on the land. The modern class was so small that Boltzmann was taught piano by Bruckner and treated for neurasthenia by Kraft-Ebbing.

Boltzmann was not merely an oaf socially. As a scientist he was willing to be crude to get results. Today, theoretical physicists (among whom Boltzmann was almost the first) like to say that elegance in theories is a virtue. Boltzmann did not think so. He told his students, "Elegance is for the tailor and the shoemaker."

He got away with this, according to Lindley (a physicist himself), because he was one of those men who has a feeling for how the bits of nature interact. He was able to mathematize that at a level that very few physicists, at any time, have been able to.

In the philosophical debates with Mach (which Lindley thinks were a waste of Boltzmann's time), he never lost sight of the materiality of the world, although Mach -- who wouldn't accept the existence of anything he couldn't see, and thus refused to believe in atoms -- did not grasp this.

Both men were out to drive mysticism out of physics. Mach reimported it through the backdoor. Even Maxwell did (with his demon). Boltzmann never did. He was always a pure materialist.

That makes his understanding of the statistical nature of material reality even more remarkable.

Boltzmann's was a life full of irony, lived in a place full of ironies. Not the least for him was that by the time Planck and Einstein devised the conceptions that made Boltzmann's difficult theories slot into a wider, more readily comprehensible framework, he was so distracted and sick that he hardly paid attention.

David Lindley's book is a beautifully written and subtle portrait not only of a very important scientist, but of a place and time in scientific history. Some rather slippery scientific concepts are expertly communicated at the same time -- that Lindley manages to do all of this in the space of about 230 pages makes this book a model, in my mind, of concision and expert communication. It is a joy to read.

If anything mitigates that joy, it is the intense sadness that hangs around the titular figure, Ludwig Boltzmann. Although his work is of primary importance in physics, few laypeople are aware of him. Boltzmann died in 1906 but -- much like his fellow Viennese Gustav Mahler, who died in 1911 -- seems like a kind of presage of 20th century uncertainties and anxieties. This is probably saying too much. But there is little of the heroic and the ironic and the certain in Boltzmann, and much of the anxious, needy and depressed. He is a figure we all recognize: whether in our alcoholic uncles, our desperate mothers, or our sleepless selves. He does not and cannot rest easy.

Boltzmann was far from anyone's stereotype of the "mad" scientist. His mental illness was all too real, his struggle with inner demons all too tragic. If you are interested in science, in scientists, in the occasionally sick world of academia, or even simply in fin-de-siecle Vienna, read this book. It's extremely good.