TY  - BOOK
AU  - Ernst,Gerhard
AU  - Hüttemann,Andreas
TI  - Time, chance and reduction: philosophical aspects of statistical mechanics 
SN  - 9780511770777 (ebook)
AV  - QC174.84 .T56 2010
U1  - 530.13 22
PY  - 2010///
CY  - Cambridge
PB  - Cambridge University Press
KW  - Statistical mechanics
KW  - Philosophy
N1  - Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015); Introduction / Gerhard Ernst and Andreas Hüttemann -- Does a low-entropy constraint prevent us from influencing the past? / Mathias Frisch -- The past hypothesis meets gravity / Craig Callender -- Quantum gravity and the arrow of time / Claus Kiefer -- The natural-range conception of probability / Jacob Rosenthal -- Probability in Boltzmannian statistical mechanics / Roman Frigg -- Humean metaphysics versus a metaphysics of powers / Michael Esfeld -- The crystallization of Clausius's phenomenological thermodynamics / C. Ulises Moulines -- Reduction and renormalization / Robert W. Batterman -- Irreversibility in stochastic dynamis / Jos Uffink
N2  - Statistical mechanics attempts to explain the behaviour of macroscopic physical systems in terms of the mechanical properties of their constituents. Although it is one of the fundamental theories of physics, it has received little attention from philosophers of science. Nevertheless, it raises philosophical questions of fundamental importance on the nature of time, chance and reduction. Most philosophical issues in this domain relate to the question of the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics. This book addresses issues inherent in this reduction: the time-asymmetry of thermodynamics and its absence in statistical mechanics; the role and essential nature of chance and probability in this reduction when thermodynamics is non-probabilistic; and how, if at all, the reduction is possible. Compiling contributions on current research by experts in the field, this is an invaluable survey of the philosophy of statistical mechanics for academic researchers and graduate students interested in the foundations of physics
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511770777
ER  -