The Most Misunderstood Concept in Physics

lovethebomb

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  • Apr 18, 2015
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    Definitely. One needs to follow a course in statistical mechanics to cut through the crap and get the hang of it. It’s all about counting states and their multiplicities. Then optimizing the the number of states may lead you to canonical definitions of temperature, pressure and chemical potential. Before you know it, everything spring out of first principles one after another.

    Stat mech is technically not in the realm of classical physics…nor in the realm of quantum mechanics. But, somehow, it has the convenience of fitting nicely with classical electrodynamics as well as quantized field theories. Elegant stuff.
     
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