Tragically, in 1906, Boltzmann committed suicide and many believe that the statistical mechanics was the cause. He provided the current definition of entropy, interpreted as a measure of statistical disorder of a system His student, Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on Boltzmann's work, died similarly in 1933. William James, in 1909, found dead in his room probably due to suicide. Bridgman, the statistical physics pioneer, committed suicide in 1961. Gilbert Lewis, took cyanide in 1987after not getting a Nobel prize.
Interesting and sad statistics. The complexity of the subject might be the reason. It required complete concentration and solitude...
Dear M. Imtiaz Khan
In every subject, the scientests try their level best to get the perfect results. For this they do day and night work without any sleep and ment rest. The defenicency of proper sleep and mental tirdness result in anxiety and depression. This in turn effect the efficiency in the desired results, which in turn results in further anxiety and depression which ultimately lead to commeting suicide....
Lack of Sleep + mental tirdness = low or unexpected performance = anxiety + depression => suicidal attemps
Dear Pervaiz Ahmad,
thanks for sharing your views and brief analysis on the question.
Dear P. Contreras,
Thank you very much for your valuable comments and especially for recommending the book of J. W. Gibbs. I'll definitely read it.
Well, I suppose there are many statistical physicists who did not commit suicide. Gibbs and Helmholtz did not, and Fowler died of poor health (probably following a war injury), not by suicide. Maxwell did not commit suicide, he died of cancer. So I doubt that the basic statement of most physicists that worked in statistical mechanics committing suicide is true.
As to Boltzmann's suicide, as I understand it, he did not kill himself due to the difficulties of his subject driving him crazy. Rather it was the poor reception of his work, people that did not believe in atoms mocking him, that may have contributed to his suicide. Even that is not a safe bet: he suffered from depression which is a (sometimes deadly) illness all by itself, not necessarily connected to his work. His sister died in mental derangement, so there may be a strong hereditary component to the cause of his death.
I started a project and a new journal of completely new type about
"Non-Statistical" many-particle mathematical physics. See my site
mech.math.msu.su/~malyshev
and write to me please 2malyshev at mail.ru
I had been studying certain areas of statistical physics, thermodynamics, and information (Shannon) entropy recently. Refreshing old knowledge and adding new. The subject is very fuzzy, unclear, and has many definitions under the same name.
Entropy -- just one name -- has many different meanings in hands of different physicists. This brings conflicts into understanding.
Additionally, Boltzmann and his followers were harshly ostracized, insulated, and diminished by their contemporaries. For some people, it might be difficult to face such refusal despite the evidence.
Statistical mechanics dramatically changed the view of physics on nature. Older physicists were unable to leave their incorrect and outdated understanding of nature. Hence, they turned against Boltzmann and later against his followers.
SM is irreversible. This is unheard of before it. All laws in mechanics are reversible. SM defined quanta -- atoms. Again, unheard of it before. Additionally, as the last-ditch, Boltzmann proved that entropy can in some rare cases spontaneously decrease in an isolated system. Wow, this was too much for his contemporaries!
When a mob is constantly working on such people there are two possible outcomes: they get stronger, or they get weaker.
Minds of great thinkers are often not from those most robust ones. This leads to a whole range of problems.
This is the side effect of conceptualization and logic, it doesn't necessary relate to any specific subject area.
As Bishop Berkeley said: "esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived)". Perceptual knowledge is very important for our mental health. If a person focuses too much on conception and logic, and forgets about perception, emptiness will fill his mind, and eventually creates all sorts of mental problems.
Dr. Jiří Kroc, thank you for the detailed answer. I completely agree with your views on SM.
Dear Prof. M Imtiaz Khan
Statistical Physics is necessary for the fundamental study of any physical system that has many degrees of freedom. The approach is based on statistical methods, probability theory and the microscopic physical laws. It can be used to explain the thermodynamic behaviour of large systems.
When I took statistical mechanics in undergrad, the math isn’t what was difficult. It was pretty much just that the concepts can be difficult since it’s pretty different from other physics courses. I’m not sure how to express it, but it’s I think “messier”. Also it doesn’t help that statistical mechanics is most frequently (based on what I’ve heard) the worst taught course in the sequence. It’s hard to teach well, and it’s also often used as a sort of filter course. This being the case is I think why I always hear people hating on stat mech, not because it’s an awful subject, but because people have a bad experience with it.
thank you Dr. Muhammad Zubair for your views and personal experiences of SM studies.
Dear Malyshev Vadim,
I wanna read your lectures, but all of them are in the Russian language and I don't know this beautiful language.
Dear Prof. M. Imtiaz Khan, dear scholars interested by this question,
I think in general being depressed is not the fault of the scientists themselves. It is also not the fault of the studied subject.
If the scientific commitee or generally the world is not ready for peacefully accept a new scientific finding, it is a shame for the scientific commitee and a pity for this world.
The work and spirit of scientists in the statistical mechanics will be remembered for long, while the ones that suppressed them and mobed them have already been forgotten. I think that is the most just sentence made by the time.
Best regards for you all
CC
Dear Chencheng Xu, thank you for the detailed answer. I agree with your comments.
Dear M. Imtiaz Khan,
you can read this, it is in English.
http://math-mathphys.org/SMPh_1_eng/Contents.html
There you can find description of most parts of my Project. concerning in particular
Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics with minimum probability.
It is not necessary. With few examples conclusion can not be made.
I did not understand. What is not necessary ? Moreover, I did not claim any conclusions.
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