Statistical mechanics and scientific explanation : determinism, indeterminism and laws of nature /

Bibliographic Details
Corporate Author:	World Scientific (Firm)
Other Authors:	Allori, Valia (Editor)
Format:	eBook
Language:	English
Published:	Singapore ; Hackensack, NJ : World Scientific, [2020]
Subjects:	Statistical mechanics. Electronic books.
Online Access:	Connect to the full text of this electronic book

Table of Contents:

Intro
Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Different Faces of Explanation
Chapter 1. The Mentaculus Vision
References
Chapter 2. Probabilistic Explanations and the Derivation of Macroscopic Laws
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Objectivity and subjectivity
2.3. Two notions of probability
2.4. The law of large numbers
2.5. Explanations and probabilistic explanations
2.6. Time evolution and probabilistic explanations
2.6.1. Microstates and macrostates
2.6.2. Derivation of macroscopic laws from microscopic ones
2.6.3. Irreversibility and probabilistic explanations
2.7. The Kac ring model
2.7.1. The model
2.7.2. Analogue of Boltzmann's solution
2.7.3. Microscopic analysis of the model
2.7.4. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References
Chapter 3. Some Reflections on the Statistical Postulate: Typicality, Probability and Explanation between Deterministic and Indeterministic Theories
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Boltzmann's approach to statistical mechanics
3.2.1. Microstates, macrostates and entropy
3.2.2. The past hypothesis
3.2.3. The statistical postulate
3.3. How to avoid probability talk: The notion of typicality
3.3.1. The typicality measure
3.3.2. Typicality and probability
3.3.3. Explanation based on typicality
3.3.4. Objections to the typicality account
3.4. How to dispense of the statistical postulate: The stationarity argument
3.4.1. Objections to the stationarity argument
3.4.2. Replies to objections to the stationarity argument
3.4.3. Boltzmann's ingredients in the typicality account
3.5. Quantum statistical mechanics
3.5.1. The indeterministic case
3.6. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
Chapter 4. Explaining Thermodynamics: What Remains to be Done?
4.1. Introduction
4.2. What is thermodynamics?
4.3. Explaining thermodynamics in terms of statistical mechanics
4.4. The ubiquity of forgetfulness
4.5. The open systems approach
4.6. Obtaining autonomous dynamics for subsystems
4.7. Temporal asymmetry and the open systems approach
4.8. Conclusion
References
Part II: The Language of Typicality
Chapter 5. Reassessing Typicality Explanations in Statistical Mechanics
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Typicality Explanations
5.2.1. Typicality-claims
5.2.2. Unpacking typicality-claims
5.2.3. Comparing the analyses
5.3. Typicality in Statistical Mechanics
5.3.1. How Typicality is used in Statistical Mechanics
5.3.2. Size Does Matter
5.3.3. The Combined Typicality Approach
5.4. Conclusion
References
Chapter 6. The Logic of Typicality
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Typicality propositional logic
6.2.1. The language
6.2.2. The Semantics of TPL
6.2.3. Tableaus for TPL
6.2.4. Soundness
6.2.5. Additional results
6.2.5.1. Conjunction and Disjunction
6.2.5.2. Deduction theorems
6.2.5.3. Modal Logic and TPL
6.3. Typicality Intuitionistic Logic
6.3.1. The language