Atomism, Boltzmann and Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics

摘要

We often try to offer reality of objects, or concepts, by assuming theirexistence or consistence and deducing consequences so extreme in appearance, with respect to the starting assumptions, to imply the searched reality, once their truth can be checked. This process has been behind many of the great advances in Science, in Physics at least. As an example I am thinking of the 'aristotelian' view of motion (as composition of uniform circular revolutions (Sc)) which proved to the Ancient Greeks the reality of the quasi periodic planetary motions. Or of Saccheri's attempt, (S), to infer the non existence of a non euclidean geometry by assuming the non validity of the fifth Euclid's Axiom and proceeding to a breathtaking, almost endless, search for consequences that he regarded as repellent, failing to see that having found non logical contridictions he had in fact almost established the existence of non-euclidean geometry. A fact recognized later by Gauss, Bolyai, Lobachevsky.