The lasting fame of the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) rests on the statistical interpretation which he gave to classical thermodynamics.

Ludwig Boltzmann was born on Feb. 20, 1844, in Vienna, the son of Ludwig and Katharina Pauernfeind Boltzmann. In 1863 he entered the University of Vienna, where one of his teachers was Joseph Stefan, author of the law of radiation named after him.

Thermodynamics and Kinetic Theory

Evidence of the creativity of Boltzmann's intellect was the fusion of thermodynamics and molecular theory that characterized an early paper on the mechanistic meaning of the second law of thermodynamics. In it Clausius's famous formula for entropy, (dQ/T) 0, was given for the first time in terms of the kinetic theory of gases. The paper was written toward the end of Boltzmann's studies in 1866, and shortly afterward he received his doctor's degree and became a privatdozent at the university. He was also chosen...