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Ludwig Boltzmann Facts

Ludwig Boltzmann Facts
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (February 20, 1844 to September 5, 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. He developed the field of statistical mechanics, which explains and predicts how the properties of atoms (such as mass, charge, and structure) determine the physical properties of matter.
Interesting Ludwig Boltzmann Facts:
Ludwig Boltzmann was born in Vienna and was tutored at home until he attended high school
In 1863 he entered the University of Vienna to study physics and received his PhD in 1866 with a dissertation on the kinetic theory of gases.
In 1867 he became a lecturer and worked as an assistant to Joseph Stefan.
In 1869 he became a full Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Graz and also spent several months in Heidelberg working with Robert Bunsen.
From 1873 to 1876 he was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Vienna.
In 1885 he became a member of the Imperial Austrian Academy of Sciences and in 1888 was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1890 he accepted the Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Munich and in 1893 he became the Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Vienna.
His kinetic theory of gases depends on the reality of atoms and molecules the existence of which was not universally accepted at that time.
The now accepted Maxwell-Boltzmann theory describes particle speeds in gases where the atoms move freely and share energy and momentum with each other as they collide.
It describes the probability distribution for the magnitude of a particles velocity depending on the temperature of the system and mass of the particle.
His probability distribution explained the second law of thermodynamics, or law of entropy, that all systems will either be in a state of disorder or moving towards it.
His work was viciously attacked by many leading scientists and fueled a bout of deep depression.
Two years after Boltzmann's death, studies of colloidal suspensions confirmed the values of Avogadro's number and Boltzmann's constant and made atoms accepted as scientific fact.
His work was essential to the development of energetics, the study of energy under transformation.
He suffered from bouts of severe depression and on September 5, 1906, he hanged himself while on vacation in Italy.


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