Ludwig Boltzmann was born in Vienna, where he received his education. Boltzmann's major contribution to physics and, indirectly, to philosophy, was his profound work in the theory that grounded the phenomenological theory of heat, temperature, and the transformations of internal energy at the macroscopic level—that is to say thermodynamics—in the theoretical description of the underlying mechanical behavior of the basic constituents of a system, such as the molecules of a gas. Boltzmann also contributed directly to the ongoing philosophical discussions about the nature of scientific theories as a member of the group of outstanding physicist-philosophers concerned with such issues in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a group including Pierre Duhem, Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Ostwald, and Heinrich Hertz. During his career he held chairs at Graz, Munich, and Vienna.

After a long career as distinguished researcher and teacher whose influence through...