The Man Who Understood Entropy.

In the serene town of Duino, Italy, on September 5, 1906, physicist Ludwig Boltzmann took his own life. The reason was constant criticism for his belief in atoms—a concept most scientists of his era dismissed.

Boltzmann was among the first to use atoms and molecules to explain the mysteries of thermodynamics—ideas that eventually formed the foundation of quantum mechanics. Despite this, he had to face massive criticism from his colleagues, mostly from Mach and Ostwald. Mach believed that since atoms could not be observed, they are not scientific theories. Shortly after his death, Boltzmann's ideas got widespread acceptance mostly due to the work of Einstein and Planck.

0:00 - 1:44 Intro
1:44 - 2:50 Early life and education
2:50 - 12:43 Boltzmann’s work on Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
12:43 - 20:17 Boltzmann's allies and rivals
20:17 - 22:47 Death and Legacy

[johnbrimmer]

As someone who suffers from depression, diagnosed with bipolar, Boltzmann is one of my heros. When i get overwhelmed with everything and find it hard to go on i try to remember Boltzmann's amazing contributions to this world and how much more he would have been able to contribute if he had decided to go on. I hope there is a timeline out there where he changed his mind.

[colmcillegardner]

Entropy is often described as a measure of disorder in a system; higher entropy indicates greater disorder.
However, it is more accurately a measure of the numbers of ways particles can be arranged, reflecting energy dispersal rather than chaos.

[douglasstrother]

Planck's approach to Blackbody Radiation was to analyze the entropy as a function of energy. To make both high-frequency and low-frequency data consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he included an additional "guess" term proportional to the frequency (hf); this results in Planck's Law. Planck's subsequent application of Boltzmann's Statistical Mechanics to justify his guess then led to his revolutionary conclusion that the material of the walls emit and absorb radiation in discrete quanta. A paper titled "Planck’s Route to the Black Body Radiation Formula and Quantization" by Michael Fowler (7/25/2008) gives a nice discussion. "Theoretical Concepts in Physics: An Alternative View of Theoretical Reasoning in Physics" (1984) by Malcolm S. Longair contains more details.

One can only speculate on the development of Physics if both Maxwell and Boltzmann had lived longer.

[jaybingham]

17:45 Here, Planck goes on to essentially describe Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology hypothesis (CCC). Through entropy, the universe is on a march toward maximal entropy. Essentially, long from now one single remaining interaction will be all that's left before the universe ticks over to a constant state that would (in theory) last forever. But then again, consider that at finally arriving at maximal entropy (upon the carrying out of that last disquinquishable microstate) a new "thing" will have ushered forth: a cosmological coin, if you will. Max entropy on one side. But upon flipping it over, you see with the change in perspective that the obverse is in fact 'highly ordered' (at scale). And when a highly ordered state comes about, all the energy of that system will be massively unstable...hanging on a knife's edge...awaiting a perturbation from something quantum (maybe an inflaton). Inevitably though, a new (scale-adjusted) big bang will usher forth. So postulates Roger.

[jasonbrown]

It's not true that entropy is always increasing, just that any decreasing is extremely improbable. This point needs to be made much more clear when we teach physics.

[Debraj]

With all the youtube, internet and years of study, I still cannot think like Boltzman.

[technomage]

It's interesting that it's commonly thought of as disorder when in another sense it's the universe moving toward ultimate equilibrium.

[kingofgoldnessr]

Being an "Energeticist" and saying that atoms are figments of the imagination is ironic considering energy is a purely abstract measure

[quranjadeed]

We don’t realize just how many past and present individuals have gone through the same experience except they weren’t well known scientists just regular folk. Speak the truth, write with clarity, and stick with it to the end-as Boltzmann says.

[RichardCorongiu]

I remembef my days of thermodynamics, both in and engineering and chemistry " environment" ...uniquely interesting, conceptually challenging and brilliant. Applications of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law and that beautiful family of curves ( isentropic and adiabatic etc ) . Still has me amazed.

[StanTheObserver-lorx]

When a toy slows down because the battery is getting weak? That's entropy.

[TerribleShmeltingAccident]

wisdom, love, and family are things that (can) grow stronger in time.

[dougr.]

Well balanced and thorough non-mathematical description….two omissions and corrections though are as follows. Einstein’s four “Annie mirabilis” papers of 1905 led to or included the equivalence of matter and energy, and/or their inter convertibility, thereby showing that both the atomists and energeticists were correct in a way. Moreover, the diffraction of X-Rays by H.G. Moseley also demonstrated the usefulness and hence the correctness of the atomic hypothesis. As far as I am aware, reference materials (sources) are not presented.

[casual.dojo.]

This is good work. Thank you. Nice one.

[Filip-cing]

Please don’t use that screeching sound in transitions it’s hurting my ears

[triplec]

With regard to the time reversibility of entropy, it's interesting to look at the entropic consequences of Mirror Universe proposal put forth by Neil Turok and others at the Perimeter Institute. Here the Time dimension originates in the Big Bang and progresses in both positive and negative time with approximately half of the matter and energy existing along each of these timelines. Although the Mirror Universe has a lot of development ahead before widespread acceptance and currently doesn't address entropy, it seems clear that entropy would function in the same manner in both halves of a bifurcated universe. But, since entropy increases along both a positive and negative timelines, the total entropy of the closed system (the entire universe) doesn't change. The time reversibility of entropy is only a problem if you passively accept that time only moves in one direction. Just a side note: While some are viewing the Mirror Universe of Turok, et al., as having a unique take on the cosmogeny of the universe, Isaac Asimov proposed a similar beginning back in the 60's or early 70's in a magazine piece. It was later incorporated into his book "Science, Numbers, and I" published about 1972.

[Galileosays]

Entropy is a potential that measures the number of independent (micro)states that give the same total energy.
In the classical mechanical concept this number is infinite for an ideal gas, since the atoms can be at any position and at any speed in a defined space. It is quantum mechanics, i.e. the concept of Planck that the momentum is discrete, which makes the number of microstates quantified and finite.

[pshehan]

Einstein did not accept quantum mechanics: "God does not play dice." He did win a Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect which said that light sometimes acts as a particle.

[ulrikof.]

Our thermodynamics professor said: "What is entropy? God knows it, the professor feels it, and the students learn how to take it into calculation".

[lordemed]

does time move inone direction becase the universe expands, ie entropy increases?