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On How to Approach the Approach to Equilibrium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Joshua Luczak
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Abstract

This article highlights the limitations of typicality accounts of thermodynamic behavior so as to promote an alternative line of research: understanding and accounting for the success of the techniques and equations physicists use to model the behavior of systems that begin away from equilibrium. This article also takes steps in this promising direction. It examines a technique commonly used to model the behavior of an important kind of system: a Brownian particle that has been introduced to an isolated fluid at equilibrium. It also accounts for the success of the model, by identifying and grounding the technique’s key assumptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 393 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Very special thanks to Wayne Myrvold for helpful discussions and comments on earlier drafts. Special thanks to Carl Hoefer, Markus Müller, Chris Smeenk, and David Wallace for helpful discussions and comments on work related to this project. Thanks to Jeremy Butterfield, Jos Uffink, and other audience members at CLMPS for helpful comments on a presentation of this work. Thanks also to two anonymous referees for helpful comments.

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