Concept
Statistical mechanics
Overview
In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. Sometimes called statistical physics or statistical thermodynamics, its applications include many problems in a wide variety of fields such as biology, neuroscience, computer science, information theory and sociology. Its main purpose is to clarify the properties of matter in aggregate, in terms of physical laws governing atomic motion.
Statistical mechanics arose out of the development of classical thermodynamics, a field for which it was successful in explaining macroscopic physical properties—such as temperature, pressure, and heat capacity—in terms of microscopic parameters that fluctuate about average values and are characterized by probability distributions.
While classical thermodynamics is primarily concerned with thermodynamic equilibrium, statistical mechanics has been applied in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to the issues of microscopically modeling the speed of irreversible processes that are driven by imbalances. Examples of such processes include chemical reactions and flows of particles and heat. The fluctuation–dissipation theorem is the basic knowledge obtained from applying non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to study the simplest non-equilibrium situation of a steady state current flow in a system of many particles.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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This condition is realized in the extensive and important class of phenomena commonly called mechanical, namely the phenomena of the communication of motion (or of pressure, which is tendency to motion) from one body to another. In this important class of cases of causation, one cause never, properly speaking, defeats or frustrates another; both have their full effect. If a body is propelled in two directions by two…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Statistical mechanics is.
The knowledge of the elementary fact enables us to put the problem in an equation. Nothing remains but to deduce from this by combination the complex fact that can be observed and verified. This is what is called _integration_, and is the business of the mathematician. It may be asked why, in physical sciences, generalization so readily takes the mathematical form. The reason is now easy to see. It is not only…
Henri Poincaré, The Foundations of Science
States what Statistical mechanics is.
The kinetical theory of gases is a good example of this. This theory is intended to explain certain simple formulæ, the chief of which is called the law of Boyle. It is, that if air or any other gas be placed in a cylinder with a piston, and if its volume be measured under the pressure of the atmosphere, say fifteen pounds on the square inch, and if then another fifteen pounds per square inch be placed on the…
Charles S. Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic
States what Statistical mechanics is.
Philosophers who discussed Statistical mechanics
Related ideas
- Artificial intelligence
- Game theory
- Quantum decoherence
- Sociology
- Classical mechanics
- Heat
- Neuroscience
- Physics
- Probability theory
- Quantum mechanics
- Statistics
- James Clerk Maxwell
- Transistor
- Astrophysics
- Complex system
- Computer science
- Ludwig Boltzmann
- Kinetic theory of gases
- Biology
- Entropy
Place in the tradition
Part of Deductive-nomological model.