Boltzmanns Atom: The Great Debate That Launched A Revolution In Physics

In the tradition of LONGITUDE, BOLTZMANN'S ATOM is the dramatic true story of the fascinating characters behind the greatest turning point in modern science. In 1900 the existence of the atom was a matter of great scientific debate, but by 1905, the atom was an accepted fact and the work of Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Marie Curie launched the atomic century. At the centre of this dramatic story, told against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century Vienna, is Ludwig Boltzmann, the forgotten genius who set the atomic revolution in motion. Boltzmann, an Austrian physicist, was an unabashed believer in the atomic hypothesis. The most visionary physicist of his age, he explained how the properties of matter arise from the movement of their smallest parts. But during his lifetime, Boltzmann's enthusiasm and progress were constantly thwarted by his nemesis, Ernst Mach. Mach, a respected scientist, didn't see the point of explaining what could not be seen. He developed a philosophy to bolster his conviction that science ought to stick to what it can measure directly and ensnared Boltzmann in an all-consuming philosophical debate on the subject. Though he had almost single-handedly invented twentieth-century theoretical physics, Boltzmann died a broken man, unaware that his vision would eventually lead to the greatest chain of scientific dscoveries ever made. In BOLTZMANN'S ATOM David Lindley combines expert storytelling with his deep understanding of the subject to shed light on an enthalling period of ferment and discovery.

Born in Austria and something of a bumpkin by nature, the 19th-century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann did not fit in easily in the highly cultured German universities at which he taught for many years. To add to his difficulties, Boltzmann stirred up controversy by proposing that scientists could make intelligent guesses about the behavior of atoms, which, though they moved randomly, could be described by certain probabilistic generalizations. His suggestion, hinging on novel interpretations of statistical theory, was not immediately acclaimed. "To an audience of physicists raised in the belief that scientific laws ought to encapsulate absolute certainties and unerring rules," writes scientist and journalist David Lindley, "these were profound and disturbing changes."

Opposed by the then-influential physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach, who urged that scientists stick to classical thermodynamics, Boltzmann was hard-pressed to convince his colleagues that the behavior of atoms could be explained by laws thought to apply only to the gaming table. Mach objected, and with some cause, that "the fact that the theory worked was not enough to prove that the assumptions on which the theory rested were true." It would take the next generation of scientists, among them Albert Einstein, to provide more solid proof for Boltzmann's hunches. And, while Mach's contributions to physics have largely been superseded, Boltzmann's endure in quantum mechanics and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution for the velocities of atoms in a gas. In this lively account, David Lindley tells the story of Boltzmann's many failures, and of his eventual success. --Gregory McNamee