Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Classical probabilities, 1660–1840
- 2 Statistical probabilities, 1820–1900
- 3 The inference experts
- 4 Chance and life: controversies in modern biology
- 5 The probabilistic revolution in physics
- 6 Statistics of the mind
- 7 Numbers rule the world
- 8 The implications of chance
- References
- Name index
- Subject index
5 - The probabilistic revolution in physics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Classical probabilities, 1660–1840
- 2 Statistical probabilities, 1820–1900
- 3 The inference experts
- 4 Chance and life: controversies in modern biology
- 5 The probabilistic revolution in physics
- 6 Statistics of the mind
- 7 Numbers rule the world
- 8 The implications of chance
- References
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
The problems of statistical physics are of greatest interest in our time, since they lead to a revolutionary change in our whole conception of the universe.
Richard von Mises (1928)THE BACKGROUND: CLASSICAL PHYSICS
The first unified program of modern physics was created by Isaac Newton. He showed how the motion of diverse objects, including the planets, the tides, falling bodies and projectiles, could be derived from a single force ruling them all: universal gravitation. Newton's successes were generalized into a mechanical world view based on the assumption that, in principle, all phenomena could be explained in a similar fashion, though perhaps requiring other forces besides gravitation. Some of those additional forces were evident, such as the force that accounts for the elasticity in the collisions of billiard balls. Whatever the range of qualitatively different forces still to be discovered, they were all conceived to operate within a general formal framework, originally set up by Newton and further developed and perfected by d'Alembert, Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, and others, so that by 1800 a well-established scheme for the explanation of natural phenomena was available. Special assumptions about the forces proved in the end to be less crucial for this scheme than a certain mathematical structure. The basic physical properties of a system were explained using differential equations of second order in time, and later also mathematically equivalent tools such as variation principles.
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- Information
- The Empire of ChanceHow Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life, pp. 163 - 202Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989