Partition function appears to provide a solid relation between quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, but who first came up with it?
Finally i found it....after a 2 hour long riding on google :) (attached picture)
Boltzmann (1870) and Gibbs were (1901) the explorers, but the central role of partition function is raised after Gibbs.
Finally i found it....after a 2 hour long riding on google :) (attached picture)
Boltzmann (1870) and Gibbs were (1901) the explorers, but the central role of partition function is raised after Gibbs.
Thanks Peter! Very interesting to know the origins of this in Planck, and then developed by Darwin and Fowler in Philosophical Magazine.
The concept of a statistical ensemble, which leads to the partition function that would allow one to deduce all thermodynamic properties of a system, in principle, was most certainly introduced by J. W. Gibbs as indicated by Peter above.
To complete the picture, one should also remember contributions of J.K.Maxwell.(Maxwell gas).After reading Maxwell, it is not too difficult to think the way Gibbs was thinking.
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