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Boltzmanns Atom: The Great Debate That Launched A Revolution In Physics Hardcover – January 18, 2001

4.4 out of 5 stars 78

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A portrait of the Austrian physicist goes back to the turn of the century, when the existence of the atom was still largely theoretical and two men, Ludwig Boltzmann and Ernst Mach, competed for accolades amid a growing field of scientists.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Born in Austria and something of a bumpkin by nature, the 19th-century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann did not fit in easily in the highly cultured German universities at which he taught for many years. To add to his difficulties, Boltzmann stirred up controversy by proposing that scientists could make intelligent guesses about the behavior of atoms, which, though they moved randomly, could be described by certain probabilistic generalizations. His suggestion, hinging on novel interpretations of statistical theory, was not immediately acclaimed. "To an audience of physicists raised in the belief that scientific laws ought to encapsulate absolute certainties and unerring rules," writes scientist and journalist David Lindley, "these were profound and disturbing changes."

Opposed by the then-influential physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach, who urged that scientists stick to classical thermodynamics, Boltzmann was hard-pressed to convince his colleagues that the behavior of atoms could be explained by laws thought to apply only to the gaming table. Mach objected, and with some cause, that "the fact that the theory worked was not enough to prove that the assumptions on which the theory rested were true." It would take the next generation of scientists, among them Albert Einstein, to provide more solid proof for Boltzmann's hunches. And, while Mach's contributions to physics have largely been superseded, Boltzmann's endure in quantum mechanics and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution for the velocities of atoms in a gas. In this lively account, David Lindley tells the story of Boltzmann's many failures, and of his eventual success. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

In this well-researched study, Lindley (The End of Physics), a physicist and editor at Science News, follows the career of Ludwig Boltzmann, who played a quiet yet crucial role in physics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1897, Boltzmann proposed the then-controversial premise that matter consisted of atoms and molecules. At the time, no proof of atomic theory yet existed, and many people considered it only a fiction. Boltzmann was the first to pursue the idea that molecules in gases move with varying velocities and that these variations could be evaluated using statistical methods. Lindley describes the controversy surrounding Boltzmann's scientific publications and his angst when his theories failed to gain wide acceptance. His search for academic acceptance led him to professorships in Vienna, Graz, Munich and finally back to Vienna, sometimes these settings blur as the author jumps backward and forward in time. But Lindley's precise detailing of the inception of modern atomic theory does not falter, and he leads the lay reader along with straightforward analogies. In 1905, toward the end of Boltzmann's life, Einstein applied Boltzmann's techniques, but his results were largely overshadowed by his papers on relativity, published the same year. Boltzmann, meanwhile, had sunk into a clinical depression. In the fall of 1906 he took his own life. Within a few years, his fundamental tools would enable the development of quantum theory. Lindley offers a well-crafted blend of biography and science; readers who sought out David Bodanis's E=mc2 will also enjoy this similar attempt to explain for laypeople the basis of modern physics. (Jan. 18)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; First Edition (January 18, 2001)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0684851865
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0684851860
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9 x 1 x 6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 78

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4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
78 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2018
As a college professor who has taught thermal physics to undergrads several times, I could not put this book down. It was incredibly interesting to learn in more detail the intellectual debates that occurred during the development of equilibrium statistical physics in the later years of the 19th century. David Lindley is a clear expositor and offers many insights into the changes in the process and approach to science that this period produced, especially the introduction of statistical thinking into physics, and the willingness to accept and theorize about unseen things (e.g atoms) which led to the full development of modern theoretical physics. The book also sets these scientific developments in the historical context of the time, illustrating the role that politics played in shaping the science. Although Botzmann's life had elements of frustration and sadness in it, and came to a tragic end, his life and this book are inspiring as well as captivating. Highly recommended!
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Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2014
Today we have little problem understanding that certain laws of physics are probabilistic. Statistical probabilities are an integral part of trying to understand the behavior of atoms. But in the late 1800’s suggesting that we understand nature by statistics was anathema to most physicists. Nature had “laws” and those laws were either true or not true. If they were statistical probabilities they were not “laws.” It was Ludwig Boltzmann who revolutionized the way we think of atoms by showing, for example, that in the second law of thermodynamics the increase of entropy at any given moment in time is a very high probability but never an absolute certainty. It is not impossible that heat could flow to a hotter body; it is just enormously unlikely. This change in thinking about the way we understand nature led to so much more after Boltzmann’s death. He spent much of his life repeating his point again and again. Plagued by bad health, long periods of apathy and depression that he called “neurasthenia,” and a frequent sense that his work was not appreciated, Boltzmann committed suicide at age 62. Largely unknown to him, his work opened the door to a new way of understanding the very small in nature – a critical part of the foundation of physics.

David Lindley is a fine writer and his descriptions of Boltzmann’s life and work are clear and easy to follow. My only problem with the book is with the digressions. Lindley also wrote the superb biography of Lord Kelvin published three years after this book. In the Kelvin biography he also digresses and talks for several pages about people that Kelvin worked with. I found those discussions interesting, relevant and well-written. But I did not feel that way about some of the digressions in this book. Lindley’s discussions of other historical figures are less directly relevant here at times. For example, he spends much of the second chapter talking about the atomic theories of Lucretius and Democritus. The idea is to give a thumbnail sketch of the history of atomic theory but to this reader it was much more than I wanted to know in a book about the life of Boltzmann. His dozen page discussion of the background, life and work of the American Josiah Gibbs is much more directly relevant to Boltzmann’s work but seemed to include more than was necessary. Other digressions like the ones on Helmholtz and Maxwell I thought were better tied to the overall context. But this is really a minor problem. Perhaps it is because his book on Kelvin is so consistently strong that my disappointment rises because I am comparing Lindley’s work here against his own later book. In any case this work stands by itself as a worthwhile book on both Boltzmann and the state of physics in the late 1800's.

Ludwig Boltzmann is not a household word, even among those with some background in science. But his place in the history of physics is critical in the development of the modern scientific worldview. Lindley’s book gives Boltzmann his due and fleshes out the life of a brilliant but often tortured person. I recommend the book.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2020
This is a well written book, it paints a vivid picture of both Boltzmann and the development of kinetic theory, and what came to be known as statistical mechanics. I think it is possible that people without a scientific background could find it hart to follow. I enjoyed it very much, and I understand the history of one of the greatest minds of mankind and o an important area of science much better now.
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2020
This is an excellent popular history of statistical mechanics with much on the H theorem, not a lot on Maxwell’s demon, but a whole chapter on the Yale physicist Gibbs. Covers the debate over atoms between Mach and Boltz-mann.
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2005
I loved this book. I was very wrapped up in it throughout. I highly recommend it to any physics students who are about to undertake a course in Thermo or Stat Mech. Amazingly, Lindley does a better job of explaining some things than many textbooks. I learned a lot from this book. I think seeing the historical development aides in learning the science.

One downside is the lack of more in-depth science. Only one equation is written (S=klnw). It would be nice to see more of the physics being developled...possibly an idea for a new textbook...

All in all, very fun. I would love to read more history of physics books that are written similarly.
6 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2021
The title of my review is an expression of disappointment. I was expecting deeper explanations and discussion of Boltzmann's game changing approach to physics, but what this fine treatment offers is a narrative history of Boltzmann's work and life. Lindley provides a fine sketch of the intellectual climate of physics in mid nineteenth century Vienna, Graz, Munich, and Cambridge. His discussion of Loschmidt and Mach is very good-- especially Mach. And he manages to capture the taciturn Gibbs in an off-handed way. But Lindley is no biographer. He is writing a research review narrative that is neither biography nor intellectual history, but rather a kind of graduate students' table talk of thermodynamics. I turned to Boltzmann's Lectures of Gas Theory for the math and was delighted. This book is fine when taken on its own modest terms and goals: to tell the reader about how physicists in the nineteenth century thought about and argued over heat. It is a worthwhile "quick and dirty" history those arguments.
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2022
From mans evolving suspicion to full scientific acceptance which birthed relativity and quantum theory.
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024
it looks like garbage. i wish they would say which books are print on demand.

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 20, 2021
Very well researched and written. Right mix of biography, history and physics. Recommended to anyone interested in the history of atomism.