Abstract
My aim in this paper is to investigate both historically and philosophically some developments of statistical mechanics in order to gain insights into the nature of scientific theories. Picking out examples in the history as well as in contemporary issues, I shall analyze some of the fundamental problems facing statistical mechanics to work out general statements about what scientific theories are. Borrowing formalization methods from the physical sciences themselves as well as from philosophy, I shall attempt at showing that intertheoretical links are as essential tn a scientific theory as is its internal hierarchical structure.
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References
This was particularly striking during the 1998 STATPHYS Conference.
For philosophical presentations of these debates, see for instance [Sk193b] and [Gut99].
Cf. [Ste179].
Cf. Sections 2.1 and 3.2.
The notion of mixing is defined in Section 3.2.
Cf for instance [Sup167], [Sup088], and [vFr80].
Cf. [B1a62a].
This strategy globally follows that exposed in [BaroLud00].
Cf. [Max60], [Max67], [Max79], [Bo168], [Bo171], [Bo172].
Cf. [Gib02], [Bor06], [Bor13], etc.
Cf[P1a13] and [Ros213] for early demonstrations of the impossibility of ergodic mechanical systems. The history of statistical mechanics can be found in [Bru76] and [vP194].
Cf. [Rue69] .
Cf. [Max79] .
Cf. [EarRéd96].
Cf. [Max60] .
This corresponds to the “first formulation of ergodic hypothesis” in Section 2.1.
Cf. [Wig70] and [Wig85].
Cf for instance [Sin076].
Cf. [EarRéd96], as well as [Leb93a], [Leb93b], and [Leb99].
For the notion of ‘controlled idealization’,cf. [Sk193a].
Cf. [Gal098].
Cf. [Bo171] and [Bo172].
Cf. [Gib02] .
Cf. for instance [LebPreSpo88].
Cf. [Bru76] .
Cf. [Lan75] and [Lan81] .
Cf for instance the review in [Dor98].
Cf. for instance [Sin076], [RueSin086] and [Ga1098].
Cf. [Gal098].
Cf for instance [Sin076].
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Barberousse, A. (2003). The Diversity of Models in Statistical Mechanics: Views about the Structure of Scientific Theories. In: Löwe, B., Malzkom, W., Räsch, T. (eds) Foundations of the Formal Sciences II. Trends in Logic, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0395-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0395-6_1
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