Anxiety and the Equation: Understanding Boltzmann’s Entropy

193 Pages·2018·3.211 MB·English

by  Eric Johnson

Anxiety and the Equation

Anxiety and the Equation
Understanding Boltzmann’s Entropy
Eric Johnson
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photo­
copying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without
permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Stone Serif by Westchester Publishing Services.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging­in­Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978­0­262­03861­4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For those of us who have a tendency to think like
Boltzmann (and for lovers of parentheses)

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1 Boltzmann Kills Himself 1
2 Boltzmann Is Buried (Not Once, But Twice) 3
3 Start Simple 7
4 Before Things Got Weird 11
5 Postmortem Psychiatry 13
6 But How Crazy? 19
7 Not Quite Big Numbers 27
8 Big Enough Numbers 33
9 And Everything In Between 39
10 A Case for Anxiety 47
11 One of the Many Benefits of Modernity 51
12 And Yet It Moves 55
13 Follow the Leader 63
14 The Night Before 71
15 The Next Day 73
16 One’s Harshest Critic 77
17 Something Like a Mathematical Supplement 83
18 You May Now Return to Your Seats 87
19 Boltzmann’s Constant 93
viii Contents
20 Human Factors 105
21 In Search of a Better Analogy 121
22 Equilibrium You Can Count On 133
23 A Rigorous Examination of the Obvious 147
24 The Farewell Tour 159
25 An Alternative Ending 169
Notes 171
Index 177
Acknowledgments
I thank my talented wife, Tricia Johnson, for her help with
many of the figures in the book; Nik Money, Diana Davis, Gene
Kritsky, Vinay Ambegaokar, and Mark Rance for generously
sharing their advice and expertise with me; and Stephen G.
Brush for providing me with an unpublished translation of
Boltzmann’s 1877 paper. I also thank David Lindley, whose
book Boltzmann’s Atom was a valuable source of biographical
information, as well as Jermey Matthews, Virginia Crossman,
and the other members of the MIT Press, who were enor­
mously helpful throughout the review and production of this
book.