Seminar Announcement

[Alex Meehan]

SISSA Colloquium

On Wednesday, 15 November 2006 at 15.00 in Lecture Room D (SISSA Main Building) Prof. Giuseppe Mussardo will give a seminar on

"Ludwig Boltzmann, the genius of disorder"

Abstract

The 19th-century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann stirred up controversy by proposing 
that scientists could make intelligent guesses about the behavior of atoms, 
which, though they moved randomly, could be described by certain probabilistic 
generalizations. His suggestion, to explain thermodynamics by using statistical 
methods, went against the longstanding trend of assuming absolute fixed laws. 
These were profound and disturbing changes. The seminar discusses this 
engaging story of science and the personal struggle of Ludwig Boltzmann, set 
against the intellectual climate of nineteenth-century Vienna, and shows how 
science has come to accept the reality of the invisible world.

All those interested are most welcome to attend.