Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2022
Statistical mechanics, in its broad sense, means the study of properties of bulk matter, assuming it to be composed of large numbers of particles. While each particle obeys the laws of mechanics — classical, quantum, or relativistic, whichever may be appropriate — the application of statistical methods avoids the need for considering the motion of each particle in detail, and suggests that the system as a whole has certain simple regularities. Many of these regularities were first explained (or even predicted) with the help of the kinetic theory of gases, an early version of statistical mechanics in which intuitive physical ideas based on special molecular models were applied to systems of particles whose encounters are relatively infrequent. The more general theory, developed by Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Gibbs, attempts to deal with a broad class of mechanical systems, using consistent statistical postulates.
This paper is based on research supported by the National Science Foundation's History and Philosophy of Science program. I thank Lindley Darden and Frederick Suppe for a number of useful comments.
The major works discussed in this paper are cited in the bibliography at the end. For further details and references to the extensive literature see [12]. Reprints and translations of the basic works may be found in [10]. A useful introduction to technical aspects of statistical mechanics is the recent textbook by Thompson [163].