Talk:Statistical mechanics

Out-of-place quotation ?

"Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics". -- David L. Goodman "States of Matter"

It is a little weird to start an article with a quotation, like that. — Miguel 07:33, 2004 May 28 (UTC)

I know, but it is such a great quote from a standard reference, I thought it was worth including. Michael L. Kaufman 22:29, May 28, 2004 (UTC)

It is pretty interesting, maybe inclusion at the end of the article. Edsanville 05:40, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Link

Perhaps the page should link to Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution (AC)

Structure of statistical mechanics articles

I'd like to make some more contributions to the Stat. Mech. subject, so I was trying to figure out the present structure. I've made up the following "summary" and I suppose it ought to go on the Stat. Mech. page, but I don't know where. Any suggestions or modifications? Paul Reiser 21:32, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

		Maxwell Boltzmann		Bose-Einstein		Fermi-Dirac
Particle				Boson		Fermion
Statistics		Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics Derivation of the partition function Gibbs paradox		Bose-Einstein statistics		Fermi-Dirac statistics
Gas		Ideal gas		Bose gas Bose-Einstein condensate Planck's law of black body radiation		Fermi gas Fermion condensate

General:

• Partition_function_(statistical_mechanics)
• Statistical_ensemble
  • Microcanonical_ensemble
  • Canonical_ensemble
  • Grand_canonical_ensemble
• Entropy
  • Principle of maximum entropy

RfC: Merge/redirect proposal

Should Statistical physics be merged or redirected to this article? See also Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics/Archive_January_2018#Statistical_physics_vs_mechanics. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 13:54, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

• Comment To the extent that the terms differ in meaning, statistical physics seems to be more broad (see footnote 1). Perhaps the merge should go the other way, then? XOR'easter (talk) 16:13, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I think of statistical physics as the field of human endeavor and statistical mechanics as an approach in that field. Also, stochastic physics is part statistical physics and some aspects of that approach, like stochastic optimization or financial physics, don't necessarily have a mechanical foundation. So I agree with XOR'easter that Statistical physics is the broader topic. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 17:43, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
• Comment While I tend to agree that statistical physics is a broader topic than statistical mechanics, I do object to any move of statistical mechanics to this page. Statistical mechanics is, undeniably, the more notable term and is what the vast majority of readers will be looking for when they stumble onto either of the two pages. Maybe statistical physics page can be made into an umbrella article that just links to other relevant articles? Footlessmouse (talk) 18:28, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with caveat: Statistical mechanics should be merged into statistical physics, not the other way around. The statistical physics page is weak and repeats many things in the statistical mechanics page, so the two pages should be merged. Layperson's understanding of statistical mechanics would mean motion of particles, whereas statistical physics is more broad & encompasses physics unrelated to motion like spin. So statistical mechanics should be merged into statistical physics. - 173.206.33.141 (talk) 02:26, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. I see no need for a merge. The topics are distinct, as shown above. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:17, 8 September 2020 (UTC).
• Oppose To me, the distinction is not as clear as with Quantum mechanics (methods, mostly developed before ~1930s) and Quantum physics (application of QM to real problems, ~1930s onward; this page will hopefully be created soon @Laura sf:), even though such distinction would make sense. Nature defines Statistical mechanics as a branch of Statistical physics; unfortunately I don't think I could tell, from those definitions, which SM/SP paper belongs where (statistical physics is not my field though). I'm not sure I'd say Statistical mechanics is a branch of physics, as Statistical physics is. My undergrad/grad courses (SE Europe) were Statistical physics, Quantum statistical physics - not mechanics. My colleagues don't call themselves statistical mechanics but statistical physicists. So I guess there is a difference, and I don't think the two articles should be merged. Maybe someone more knowledgeable should just expand Quantum physics. Ponor (talk) 13:29, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This is difficult since physicists often don't bother to make a distinction. There are even the two separate journals, "Journal of Statistical Mechanics" and "Journal of Statistical Physics", that publish pretty similar articles. But if you really pressed it, I think most reputable sources would pin statistical mechanics as more specific than statistical physics. The underlying argument is that it is possible to have a statistical theory of a system without any mechanical interpretation or basis. The Nature links above count as one reputable source for this point of view. If people are still unhappy we could look for another one, but to me it's pretty clear after thinking about it. MaxwellMolecule (talk) 13:52, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
• Agree There are potentially some useful distinctions between statistical physics and statistical mechanics; in practice, though, I feel like I use the terms interchangeably. I don't have a strong opinion about which direction the merge goes. DrPippy (talk) 19:29, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Question. Is stuff like AdS/CFT applied to CMP - stat mech or something else? Ema--or (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• Agree I think it's clear that "statistical physics" and "statistical mechanics" are effectively synonymous. It's rather unhelpful to try to make a distinction here in Wikipedia that the reader won't understand; how are they going to find the content they want? Furthermore, there's nothing valuable to be found in the "statistical physics" page, it should be just deleted and redirected to "statistical mechanics". I'd also like to note that recently quantum physics was split from quantum mechanics, and the split was rapidly undone for the same reasons. Tercer (talk) 12:27, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Statistical physics is the study of any physical process which appears to be stochastic. In contrast, statistical mechanics has a very specific meaning. It refers to the macro-scale properties of systems of very large numbers of microscopic parts. Statistical mechanics is a fundamentally important field and set of ideas. But most of statistical physics has nothing to do with it. Jheald (talk) 18:26, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
• Agree - Any search of journals or textbooks will show that these two terms are used interchangeably, and as this discussion has shown, people who believe that there's a distinction between the two don't even necessarily agree about what that distinction is. Additionally, I generally don't think there's enough that could non-controversially be put into the "Statistical physics" article that wouldn't also belong in the "Statistical mechanics" article, so practically speaking we shouldn't have a separate article on Statistical Physics, because we simply can't write a good article for it that won't confuse people. Also, attempting to define our own distinction here would effectively constitute original research because no consensus on the distinction exists in the literature. - car chasm (talk) 21:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose While statistical mechanics is certainly an important tool in statistical physics, statistical physics is not just a subfield of statistical mechanics. It is not important to know exactly what statistical physics is, it is a field of broadening scope, like many fields in the physical sciences can be placed into others or described by multiple approaches. I see no reason for change, or artificial constraints and mergers. kbrose (talk) 23:12, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

• Agree to remove statistical physics but split between here and statistical field theory :
  • First the page statistical physics is small and with low quality due to the fact is essentially a double, where this stat mech page is good quality because it has a precise focus i.e. classical statistical mechanics with some references to quantum mechanics, or better it tries to be mechanics agnostic, the statistical field theory page instead deserve extension, and has it's own right to be improved.
  • Second the only connotation I see for statistical physics being useful as a page is about statistical field theory namely as referenced above: a set of graduate books that refer to renormalization group, critical exponents, super fluids, stochastic models, ising models etc. therefore such content in the stat phys page (i.e. more than 50%, TBD if useful) maybe added in the statistical field theory page.
  • Third in the same perspective the name statistical physics is also due to a historical name (i.e. pre 1970s): one notorious example of such books is actually Landau [[1]] a recent course on the same at MIT [[2]] refers to statistical field theory (i.e. Post 1970s where all mixed QFT applications in condensed matter come together with the renorm group).
  • Fourth as a compromise you can have a redirect from statistical physics to the statistical field theory page with a reference in the about section of this stat mech page

This article is about overall statistical mechanics. For modern applications, see statistical field theory.

and the opposite ref in the statistical field theory page

• Looking deeper to the content of the other page there are some interesting hints: such as "sociology" "information theory" "montecarlo" which can trigger interest for applications, the part of the page on statistical mechanics is best off moved here (in a more math section), maybe also some small extra stuff in the page. Montecarlo, List of scientist and achievements can be perfectly merged in statistical field theory instead.

Flyredeagle (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Conclusion: In support of distinguishing statistical mechanics from statistical physics, I have rewritten the article lead to make this a little clearer. Statistical mechanics is not physics. It is just a mathematical tool that was used first for explaining physics, thermodynamics specifically. This makes easier to understand the successful use of statistical mechanics in sociology and other fields that have not much to do with physics. The application of statistical mechanics along with other tools or ideas to nature's physics problems is statistical physics. Therefore it should not be conflated into a single concept and WP article. Statistical mechanics is just mathematics, it is not actually physics or even science. With that in mind, both articles need a lot of work. kbrose (talk) 22:59, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Question So, stat mech is NOT physics? Ema--or (talk) 01:23, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Cross-links

Cross-blue-links. Stat mech has two discussion sections, Ema--or (talk) 21:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC) (edit Ema--or (talk) 23:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC) They're here,.. and here) Remember this? Talk:Statistical thermodynamics - predates me, Ema--or (talk) 21:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Absurd!

The article's lead claims statistical mechanics "does not assume or postulate any natural laws"!!!! No? Conservation of momentum? Conservation of Energy? Continuity? I don't understand how such a preposterous claim could be inserted in what should be a science-based article. Here's a hint: any study of ensembles of "microscopic entities" (Really?? "entities"??? more rubbish!) must differentiate the "entities" from "non-entities". That is, by definition, an assumption, as is their continued existence. That is, the subject's subject must be assumed to exist. 98.21.215.110 (talk) 15:57, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I deleted the second sentence since it was a summary of any article content. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:11, 12 April 2024 (UTC)