Ludwig Boltzmann (born Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann the February 20th 1844 with Vienna, Austria - September 5th 1906 with Duino) is a Austrian Physicien. He is regarded as the father of the Physique statistics and an enthusiastic defender of the existence of the Atome S. Validating the assumption of Démocrite according to which “the matter can be regarded as a whole of indivisible entities”, Boltzmann, using his kinetic equation known as “of Boltzmann”, theorized many equations of Mécanique fluids.

During his career of physicist, Boltzmann also on the occasion to adopt a more general philosophical point of view on sciences. While fitting fully in the tradition of philosophy of Austrian sciences, its positions can also be regarded all at the same time as an anticipation of the designs of Thomas Kuhn relating to the scientific revolutions. Partisan of an evolutionary approach inspired of work of Charles Darwin, Boltzmann considers the scientific theories as as much of “images of the world” likely to evolve/move according to our cultural framework. He also develops the thesis according to which knowledge consists mainly of a development of models, and he systematizes this idea in the article Modèle which he writes for the Encyclopedia Britannica . These designs will exert a decisive influence on the logical Positivisme of the Cercle of Vienna, as on Ludwig Wittgenstein which will recognize in him one of its principal influences.

Biography

Ludwig Boltzmann obtains his doctorate with the Université of Vienna in 1866, with a thesis on the kinetic Théorie of the gases, directed by Jožef Stefan, of which he becomes then assistant.

He studied successively with Graz, Heidelberg and Berlin, where he followed the courses of Bunsen, Kirchhoff and Helmholtz.

In 1869, it obtains a pulpit of Theoretical physics in Graz, where it remains during four years. In 1873, it accepts a pulpit of mathematics in Vienna, but returns to Graz three years later, this time to teach the experimental Physique. He becomes foreign member of the Royal Society in 1899.

He maintained the exchanges, sometimes sharp, with the physicists in connection with his work. That assigned Boltzmann particularly and involved crises of depression which led it to a first Suicide attempt with Leipzig, then at one second with Duino, close to Trieste, which will be unfortunately fatal for him. Boltzmann dies before even to have seen his ideas imposing itself. To the Zentralfriedhof, fall it from Boltzmann has an equation registered above the statue of the physicist. This epitaph is the equation S = K ln ω , which expresses the Entropie S according to the number ω of the possible equiprobable states of energy, with K the Boltzmann constant.

The atomic designs which are at the base of the searchs for Boltzmann were worth a vigorous hostility on behalf of its fellow-members to him. For lack of new developments, its results involved a certain discredit upon its theoretical work, until those are given to the honor by the discoveries of max Planck in the analysis of the radiation of the black Corps, then those of Albert Einstein with the photoelectric Effet.