Boltzmanns Atom: The Great Debate That Launched a Revolution in Physics

by David Lindley

Book Overview

In 1900 many eminent scientists did not believe atoms existed, yet within just a few years the atomic century launched into history with an astonishing string of breakthroughs in physics that began with Albert Einstein and continues to this day. Before this explosive growth into the modern age took place, an all-but-forgotten genius strove for forty years to win acceptance for the atomic theory of matter and an altogether new way of doing physics...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1501142445
• ISBN13: 9781501142444
• Release Date: March 2016
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The harrowing fight for Boltzmann's atom

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.

viennese precursor theories that would hit with a bang...

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!

Still Reverberating Conflict

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.

Thermodynamics, History, and Controversy

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.

Best Boltzmann Biography

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