Location






The seminar is held in hybrid format, in person (Múzeum krt. 4/i Room 224) and online.


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31 March (Friday) 4:15 PM  Room 224 + ONLINE
Charlotte Werndl
Department of Philosophy, University of Salzburg
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, LSE, London
 
Can Somebody Please Say What Gibbsian
Statistical Mechanics Says?

Gibbsian statistical mechanics (GSM) is the most widely used version of sta- tistical mechanics among working physicists. Yet a closer look at GSM reveals that it is unclear what the theory actually says and how it bears on experimen- tal practice. The root cause of the difficulties is the status of the Averaging Principle, the proposition that what we observe in an experiment is the en- semble average of a phase function. We review different stances toward this principle, and eventually present a coherent interpretation of GSM that pro- vides an account of the status and scope of the principle.
Related paper: Roman Frigg and Charlotte Werndl, "Can Somebody Please Say What Gibbsian Statistical Mechanics Says?", The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (2021). Preprint: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14869/