- #1
hkyriazi
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Has statistical mechanics anywhere disproven the ancient Greek idea that hard, indestructible objects (the original "atoms"), that experience no force other than that of impacts, can form the substratum of all material bodies and forces?
I've been reading Boltzmann's "Lectures on Gas Theory" (1896, 1898), and he states that his H-Theorem (which purports to show that entropy must always either increase or stay the same) is dependent upon the assumption of molecular chaos, i.e., that at equilibrium, any gas will have its molecules distributed randomly both in terms of position and velocity.
This seems inevitably to be true for the convexly-shaped particles that constitute atoms and even diatomic molecules (their dumbbell shape is still overall convex). But has it been proven to be true for any shaped particle whatsoever?
Specifically, I'm trying to evaluate the feasibility of a interesting model proposed by Frank Meno, which may be viewed at: crackpot link removed
It's an atomistic hypothesis, but postulates that a gas of hot, hard, semi-concave needle-like objects can maintain dynamically stable structures, despite constant collisions with each other, and no attractive forces between them. Does Stat Mech have anything to say about this, other than that we have no precedent for such a gas or for such behavior?
I've been reading Boltzmann's "Lectures on Gas Theory" (1896, 1898), and he states that his H-Theorem (which purports to show that entropy must always either increase or stay the same) is dependent upon the assumption of molecular chaos, i.e., that at equilibrium, any gas will have its molecules distributed randomly both in terms of position and velocity.
This seems inevitably to be true for the convexly-shaped particles that constitute atoms and even diatomic molecules (their dumbbell shape is still overall convex). But has it been proven to be true for any shaped particle whatsoever?
Specifically, I'm trying to evaluate the feasibility of a interesting model proposed by Frank Meno, which may be viewed at: crackpot link removed
It's an atomistic hypothesis, but postulates that a gas of hot, hard, semi-concave needle-like objects can maintain dynamically stable structures, despite constant collisions with each other, and no attractive forces between them. Does Stat Mech have anything to say about this, other than that we have no precedent for such a gas or for such behavior?
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