Maxwell and the normal distribution: A colored story of probability, independence, and tendency toward equilibrium

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2017.01.001zbMATH Open1357.82026arXiv1702.01411OpenAlexW993892971WikidataQ54165756 ScholiaQ54165756MaRDI QIDQ515375FDOQ515375

Authors: Balázs Gyenis 

Publication date: 13 March 2017

Published in: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We investigate Maxwell's attempt to justify the mathematical assumptions behind his 1860 Proposition IV according to which the velocity components of colliding particles follow the normal distribution. Contrary to the commonly held view we find that his molecular collision model plays a crucial role in reaching this conclusion, and that his model assumptions also permit inference to equalization of mean kinetic energies (temperatures), which is what he intended to prove in his discredited and widely ignored Proposition VI. If we take a charitable reading of his own proof of Proposition VI then it was Maxwell, and not Boltzmann, who gave the first proof of a tendency towards equilibrium, a sort of H-theorem. We also call attention to a potential conflation of notions of probabilistic and value independence in relevant prior works of his contemporaries and of his own, and argue that this conflation might have impacted his adoption of the suspect independence assumption of Proposition IV.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01411

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zbMATH Keywords

independencenormal distributionH-theoremkinetic theorystatistical mechanicssecond law of thermodynamicsMaxwellcondition A

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) Statistical thermodynamics (82B30) Irreversible thermodynamics, including Onsager-Machlup theory (82B35) Kinetic theory of gases in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B40) Stochastic methods applied to problems in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B31)

Cites Work

• Molecular forces, statistical representation and Maxwell's demon

Cited In (3)

• Construction of Non-Equilibrium Gas Distribution Functions through Expansions in Peculiar Velocity Space
• Producing useful work in a cycle by absorbing heat from a single thermal reservoir: an investigation on a locally nonchaotic energy barrier
• On Maxwellian and Boltzmann distributions

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