Maxwell and the normal distribution: A colored story of probability, independence, and tendency toward equilibrium

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57:53-65 (2017)
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Abstract

We investigate Maxwell's attempt to justify the mathematical assumptions behind his 1860 Proposition IV according to which the velocity components of colliding particles follow the normal distribution. Contrary to the commonly held view we find that his molecular collision model plays a crucial role in reaching this conclusion, and that his model assumptions also permit inference to equalization of mean kinetic energies, which is what he intended to prove in his discredited and widely ignored Proposition VI. If we take a charitable reading of his own proof of Proposition VI then it was Maxwell, and not Boltzmann, who gave the first proof of a tendency towards equilibrium, a sort of H-theorem. We also call attention to a potential conflation of notions of probabilistic and value independence in relevant prior works of his contemporaries and of his own, and argue that this conflation might have impacted his adoption of the suspect independence assumption of Proposition IV.

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Maxwell and the normal distribution: A colored story of probability, independence, and tendency toward equilibrium.Balázs Gyenis - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57:53-65.

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References found in this work

Compendium of the foundations of classical statistical physics.Jos Uffink - 2006 - In J. Butterfield & J. Earman (eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of physics. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Molecular Forces, Statistical Representation and Maxwell's Demon.P. M. Heimann - 1970 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 1 (3):189.
Maxwell and the normal distribution: A colored story of probability, independence, and tendency toward equilibrium.Balázs Gyenis - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57:53-65.

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