Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Stochastic process
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Statistical mechanics=== In the physical sciences, scientists developed in the 19th century the discipline of [[statistical mechanics]], where physical systems, such as containers filled with gases, are regarded or treated mathematically as collections of many moving particles. Although there were attempts to incorporate randomness into statistical physics by some scientists, such as [[Rudolf Clausius]], most of the work had little or no randomness.<ref name="Truesdell1975page22">{{cite journal|last1=Truesdell|first1=C.|title=Early kinetic theories of gases|journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences|volume=15|issue=1|year=1975|pages=22β23|issn=0003-9519|doi=10.1007/BF00327232|s2cid=189764116}}</ref><ref name="Brush1967page150">{{cite journal|last1=Brush|first1=Stephen G.|title=Foundations of statistical mechanics 1845?1915|journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences|volume=4|issue=3|year=1967|pages=150β151|issn=0003-9519|doi=10.1007/BF00412958|s2cid=120059181}}</ref> This changed in 1859 when [[James Clerk Maxwell]] contributed significantly to the field, more specifically, to the kinetic theory of gases, by presenting work where he modelled the gas particles as moving in random directions at random velocities.<ref name="Truesdell1975page31">{{cite journal|last1=Truesdell|first1=C.|title=Early kinetic theories of gases|journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences|volume=15|issue=1|year=1975|pages=31β32|issn=0003-9519|doi=10.1007/BF00327232|s2cid=189764116}}</ref><ref name="Brush1958">{{cite journal|last1=Brush|first1=S.G.|title=The development of the kinetic theory of gases IV. Maxwell|journal=Annals of Science|volume=14|issue=4|year=1958|pages=243β255|issn=0003-3790|doi=10.1080/00033795800200147}}</ref> The kinetic theory of gases and statistical physics continued to be developed in the second half of the 19th century, with work done chiefly by Clausius, [[Ludwig Boltzmann]] and [[Josiah Gibbs]], which would later have an influence on [[Albert Einstein]]'s mathematical model for [[Brownian movement]].<ref name="Brush1968page15">{{cite journal|last1=Brush|first1=Stephen G.|title=A history of random processes|journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences|volume=5|issue=1|year=1968|pages=15β16|issn=0003-9519|doi=10.1007/BF00328110|s2cid=117623580}}</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)