''Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics'', published in March 1902, is a work of
scientific literature
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.''
Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, sci ...
by
Josiah Willard Gibbs
Josiah Willard Gibbs (; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in t ...
which is considered to be the foundation of modern
statistical mechanics. Its full title was ''Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics, developed with especial reference to the rational foundation of thermodynamics''.
Overview
In this book, Gibbs carefully showed how the laws of
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws o ...
would arise exactly from a generic
classical mechanical system, if one allowed for a certain natural uncertainty about the state of that system.
The themes of thermodynamic connections to statistical mechanics had been explored in the preceding decades with
Clausius,
Maxwell
Maxwell may refer to:
People
* Maxwell (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
** James Clerk Maxwell, mathematician and physicist
* Justice Maxwell (disambiguation)
* Maxwell baronets, in the Baronetage o ...
, and
Boltzmann
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law