History of Kinetic Theory


This webpage is a work in progress. There are many important contributions missing. The dates given may be wrong. Names may be incomplete or misspelled. The description of the content of a work may be missing or misrepresent the work. There is much work to be done before anyone should use this page as either a reference, or consider that it accurately reflects its creator's sum knowledge of the subject. I hope that this condition is relatively temporary. I further hope that people will freely offer input about the page.

The text in the links has been kindly supplied by Stephen G. Brush. It too is a work in progress.

A Chronology of Kinetic Theory

Early Theories of Gases

Heat Dynamics

Neglected Pioneers

The Conservation of Energy

The Second Law of Thermodynamics Begins to Emerge

Revival of Kinetic Theory by Clausius

New Foundations Laid by Maxwell and Boltzmann

Irreversibility

Detailed and Semi-Detailed Balance

Poincare Recurrence Theorem

Molecular Chaos and Determinism

Mathematical Development Begins

Formal Development

Modern Mathematical Developments

Finally, Global Mathematical Theories for Large Data


Updated 25 August 2001
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