The kinetic theory of gases

    What is a kinetic theory?
         Elaborating on heat as molecular motion:  the model of elastic spheres
         Clausius's first stab (1857)

     What more is needed?  A true statistical treatment
         Maxwell's distribution (1860)
         [ ... and Boltzmann's addition (1868)]

     Excursus 1:  How did statistics get into physics?
          Where does statistics come from anyways?
          Individual behavior and social phenomena

     Excursus 2:  What is Maxwell doing with atoms?

     So the kinetic theory introduces statistics:  what is the significance? ...

Towards a statistical understanding of the second law of thermodynamics

     Maxwell's demon (1867)
          Thought experiment:  the capabilities of a "small but lively being"
          Argument:  the second law does not hold at the microscopic level

     How to obtain macroscopic irreversibility from microscopic reversibility?
          Why this is a problem — example of a diffusing gas
          Boltzmann attempts a derivation ... and then gives up (late 1870s)
          The second law is only statistically valid

     Boltzmann's new understanding of entropy
          The probability of a macroscopic state
          The price:  again, only statistical validity

     Why is this important?
          Statistical vs. deterministic laws:  what is the point of science?
          The relation between the macroscopic and the microscopic

     Objections