(1974). Newton, Gases, and Daltonian chemistry: The foundations of combination in definite proportion. Annals of Science: Vol. 31, No. 6, pp. 561-574.

Kevin Davey claims that the justification of the second law of thermodynamics as it is conveyed by the “standard story” of statistical mechanics, roughly speaking, that lowentropy microstates tend to evolve to high-entropy microstates, is “unhelpful at best and wrong at worst.” In reply, I demonstrate that Davey’s argument for rejecting the standard story commits him to a form of skepticism that is more radical than the position he claims to be stating and that Davey places unreasonable demands on the (...) notion of justification in the physical sciences. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been much synergy between the exciting areas of quantum information science and ultracold atoms. This volume, as part of the proceedings for the XCI session of Les Houches School of Physics (held for the first time outside Europe in Singapore) brings together experts in both fields. The theme of the school focused on two principal topics: quantum information science and ultracold atomic physics. The topics range from Bose Einstein Condensates to Degenerate Fermi Gases to (...) fundamental concepts in Quantum Information Sciences, including some special topics on Quantum Hall Effects, Quantum Phase Transition, Interactions in Quantum Fluids, Disorder and Interference Phenomenoma, Trapped Ions and Atoms, and Quantum Optical Devices. (shrink)

This article examines the role of philosophy in the development of the kinetic theory of gases. Two opposing accounts of this role, by Peter Clark and John Nyhof, are discussed and criticized. Contrary to both accounts, it is argued that philosophical views of scientists can fundamentally influence the results of their scientific work. This claim is supported by a detailed analysis of the philosophical views of Maxwell and Boltzmann, and of their work on the kinetic theory, especially concerning the (...) so-called specific heat anomaly. It leads to the conclusion that the scientific development of the kinetic theory cannot be understood without taking into account the role of philosophy. (shrink)

One striking feature of the contemporary modelling practice is its interdisciplinary nature. The same equation forms, and mathematical and computational methods, are used across different disciplines, as well as within the same discipline. Are there, then, differences between intra- and interdisciplinary transfer, and can the comparison between the two provide more insight on the challenges of interdisciplinary theoretical work? We will study the development and various uses of the Ising model within physics, contrasting them to its applications to socio-economic systems. (...) While the renormalization group methods justify the transfer of the Ising model within physics – by ascribing them to the same universality class – its application to socio-economic phenomena has no such theoretical grounding. As a result, the insights gained by modelling socio-economic phenomena by the Ising model may remain limited. (shrink)

In today's world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies' Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental (...) information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company's litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization's country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today's broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders. (shrink)

This article examines the role of philosophy in the development of the kinetic theory of gases. Two opposing accounts of this role, by Peter Clark and John Nyhof, are discussed and criticized. Contrary to both accounts, it is argued that philosophical views of scientists can fundamentally influence the results of their scientific work. This claim is supported by a detailed analysis of the philosophical views of Maxwell and Boltzmann, and of their work on the kinetic theory, especially concerning the (...) so-called specific heat anomaly. It leads to the conclusion that the scientific development of the kinetic theory cannot be understood without taking into account the role of philosophy. (shrink)

Currently living people cannot be said to be wronged because of the wrongless emissons of greenhouse gases by past people. According to the usual subjunctive-historical understanding of harm, currently living people cannot be said to be harmed by the impact of greenhouse emissions on their well-being. By relying on a subjunctive-threshold notion of harm we can justify conclusions about both the present generation’s duties not to violate the rights of future generations, and the present generation’s duties to compensate currently (...) living people for the harms inflicted upon them through the lasting impact of wrongless past harms. This interpretation supports a forward-looking understanding of the grounds of our relating to wrongless past harms. The significance of past harms lies in their consequences for the well-being of currently living and future people. The subjunctive-threshold notion of harm lends support to a standard of minimal, general, and universal justice. Those actors who are in a position to fulfill its requirements are under a duty to do so. Especially the rich and powerful countries ought to counteract the harmful impact of past greenhouse emissions. (shrink)

The complex spectral representation of the Liouville operator introduced by Prigogine and others is applied to moderately dense gases interacting through hard-core potentials in arbitrary d-dimensional spaces. Kinetic equations near equilibrium are constructed in each subspace as introduced in the spectral decomposition for collective, renormalized reduced distribution functions. Our renormalization is a nonequilibrium effect, as the renormalization effect disappears at equilibrium. It is remarkable that our renormalized functions strictly obey well-defined Markovian kinetic equations for all d, even though the (...) ordinary distribution functions obey nonMarkovian equations with memory effects. One can now define transport coefficients associated to the collective modes for all dimensional systems including d = 2. Our formulation hence provides a microscopic meaning of the macroscopic transport theory. Moreover, this gives an answer to the long-standing question whether or not transport equations exist in two-dimensional systems. The non-Markovian effects for the ordinary distribution function, such as the long-time tails for arbitrary n-mode coupling, are estimated by superposition of the Markovian evolutions of the dressed distribution functions. (shrink)

Many theorists who argue that individuals have a personal responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases tie the amount of GHGs that an individual is obligated to reduce to the amount that an individual releases, or what is often called a carbon footprint. The first section of this article argues that this approach produces standards that are too burdensome in some contexts. Section two argues that this approach produces standards of responsibility that are too lenient in other contexts and sketches an (...) alternative account of personal responsibility that treats it as an obligation to take certain kinds of opportunities to reduce GHGs, regardless of how little or much gas an individual releases through her own actions. Section three argues that this alternative conception of personal responsibility is well positioned to rebut the Argument from Inconsequentialism, widely considered the most significant challenge to the assumption that individuals are capable of bearing a responsibility to reduce GHGs. (shrink)

Many theorists who argue that individuals have a personal responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) tie the amount of GHGs that an individual is obligated to reduce to the amount that an individual releases, or what is often called a carbon footprint. The first section of this article argues that this approach produces standards that are too burdensome in some contexts. Section two argues that this approach produces standards of responsibility that are too lenient in other contexts and sketches (...) an alternative account of personal responsibility that treats it as an obligation to take certain kinds of opportunities to reduce GHGs, regardless of how little or much gas an individual releases through her own actions. Section three argues that this alternative conception of personal responsibility is well positioned to rebut the Argument from Inconsequentialism, widely considered the most significant challenge to the assumption that individuals are capable of bearing a responsibility to reduce GHGs. (shrink)

It is often said that the kinetic theory of gases is one of the best examples of the reduction of one theory into another; that is, the classical theory of thermodynamics [or to be more exact, a significant portion of it] is alleged to be reduced to the kinetic theory, which is based on the Newtonian mechanics and the atomistic view of the matter. But what is the nature of this alleged "reduction"? If you want to know the right (...) answer to this, the best way is to examine the historical development of the kinetic theory. The kinetic theory is a theoretical attempt to explain the nature of gases and heat processes, in general, in terms of the movements of numerous molecules constituting a gas. Its major advocates were James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79) and Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906); in the course of their work on the kinetic theory, they had to struggle with several conceptual problems, as well as with many empirical problems, and these conceptual problems have something to do with our question of theory reduction. And you will see that these problems center on the concept of probability. Drawing on Dr. Shin'ichiro Tomonaga's examination, I will argue that their case was not a reduction to, but an extension of, the Newtonian mechanics. (shrink)

The equations of state for the ideal classical gas are generalized with two characteristic constants known as the state indices. A simple and complete representation is developed for the super-ideal gas, with explicit results which are general enough to cover a wide range of equilibrium systems and states. Evidence and justification are provided in terms of examples and results of statistical physics. The new model should prove useful for treating problems involving physical behavior and properties which might otherwise call for (...) specialized or advanced methods of statistical mechanics. (shrink)

Mendeleev’s failure to represent the periodic system as a continuum may have hidden from him the space for the noble gases. A spiral format might have revealed the significance of the wide gaps in atomic mass between his rows. Tables overemphasize the division of the sequence into ‘periods’ and blocks. Not only do spirals express the continuity; in addition they are more attractive visually. They also facilitate a new placing for hydrogen and the introduction of an ‘element of atomic (...) number zero’. (shrink)

This essay seeks to illuminate the changing nature of experimental physics in the 1860s and 1870s by analysing the creation of dust tubes and dust figures by the German experimentalist August Kundt, and by showing how Kundt and his associate Emil Warburg used the ‘Kundt tube’ to test the new kinetic theory of gases. In so doing, the essay seeks to show how Kundt came to revise the vision of experimental physics that he had learned from his teacher Heinrich (...) Gustav Magnus, a vision in which the experimentalist's goal was to establish ‘the facts’. Kundt, by contrast, came to envision experimental physics as being in the service of theory: to confirm or disconfirm theory, or to provide theorists with new phenomena to theorize about. Kundt's vision, it is argued, is emblematic of the changing nature of experimental physics and reflective of the rise of the new subdisciplines of theoretical and experimental physics. (shrink)

We show that the velocity distribution in rarefied (i.e., Knudsen) gases is spontaneously weighted in favor of small speeds away from the Maxwellian distribution corresponding to the temperature of the container walls—despite thermodynamic equilibrium with the walls. The consequent paradox concerning the second law of thermodynamics is discussed.

This second edition of Basic Data of Plasma Physics is, in essence, a new book, for several reasons. First, so voluminous have been the research results in this area since the first edition of 1959 that the basic data themselves are greatly changed and enlarged. Second, whereas the earlier edition presented much of the material in verbal form, this one displays almost all of it in a consistent set of graphic figures. And, finally, this new edition is one of the (...) first implementations of computer-based information transfer, in which the basic data were searched out by means of a remote console tied into a central disk library containing an extensive collection of bibliographic information on physics literature.This last matter deserves further amplification, since the new techniques employed here are likely to be used more and more often in the future--because of the ever more rapidly expanding volume of research results just mentioned. Professor Brown, writing in Physics Today, summarizes his aims and methods:Any collection of data one can make these days is out of date before it is published. This is true, for example, of my Basic Data of Plasma Physics. In the book I tried to bring together in useful form the data of gaseous electronics and plasma physics upon which scientists base calculations and further work with basic parameters.Updating this book seemed an ideal computer experiment. I used the Information Retrieval Service of the TIP program not only to find material that has come out since publication of the book but also to arrange the program so that the computer could continue in the future to retrieve relevant information....The Technical Information Project, upon which this experiment is based, has programmed 25 physics journals from the past few years and The Physical Review from 1959 onto the IBM 7094 operated by Project MAC. Project MAC uses a compatible time-sharing system that is available by standard telephone connections....The TIP program contains title, author, reference and entire bibliography of every article covered by the computer....Entrance into the TIP system is made by choosing a key word or words most likely to be contained in the title of an article in a specific subject....in the revision of Basic Data of Plasma Physics the material is created in an open-ended form so that anyone with access to the computer program can search the literature for material that will appear after the report is printed. This feature of the bibliographic search by computers provides a new dimension to the published literature in book form which, without this open-ended feature, is out of date quite generally long before the actual publication date. (shrink)