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What Is Gibbs's Canonical Distribution?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kevin Davey
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Abstract

Although the canonical distribution is one of the central tools of statistical mechanics, the reason for its effectiveness is poorly understood. This is due in part to the fact that there is no clear consensus on what it means to use the canonical distribution to describe a system in equilibrium with a heat bath. I examine some traditional views as to what sort of thing we should take the canonical distribution to represent. I argue that a less explored alternative, according to which the canonical distribution represents a time ensemble of sorts, has a number of advantages that rival interpretations lack.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 2009 , pp. 970 - 983
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Brandon Fogel, Nick Huggett, and John Norton for their feedback and suggestions.

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