Reality in a few thermodynamic reference frames: Statistical thermodynamics from Boltzmann via Gibbs to Einstein

The thesis is: The starting point of initial reality is changed as follows:

1. (Carnot) Classical thermodynamics describes laws in terms of quantities of that reality, which is as macroscopic as empirically and experimentally observable.
2. (Boltzmann) The mechanical motions of the huge number of microscopic elements of a statistical ensemble results into the thermodynamic quantities of any macroscopic physical object averagely. The empirically and experimentally observable quantities are deduced as derivative from a hidden theoretical reality of microscopic elements such as atoms and molecules.
3. (Gibbs) The mechanical motions of the huge number of microscopic elements are substituted by different possible states of a macroscopic physical object equivalently and mathematically. The empirically and experimentally observable thermodynamic quantities are deduced as derivative from a hidden theoretical reality of different possible macroscopic states of the physical object as a whole.
4. (Einstein) The mechanically and experimentally observable thermodynamic quantities are some function of the Gibbs ensemble of all possible states (and thus some relation to it). They can be furthermore also referred to the Boltzmann ensemble of microscopic elements. Reality includes both the observable object and the hidden theoretical model as whether a Gibbs or a Boltzmann ensemble as well as the function or relation between the object and that model.

Conclusion: Reality in those reference frames can be identified in the following oppositions: macroscopic – microscopic; elements – states; relational – non-relational; observable – theoretical:

1. (Carnot): Macroscopic, both observable and theoretical.
2. (Boltzmann): Microscopic, elements, non-relational, theoretical.
3. (Gibbs): Macroscopic, states, non-relational, theoretical.
4. (Einstein): Both macroscopic and microscopic, both elements and states, relational, both observable and theoretical.

One can forecast that one synthesis is still forthcoming as to that reality, which can be utilized in a statistical and thermodynamic theory: both relational and non-relational. All other syntheses, which are implicit in the development of the concept of statistic and thermodynamic reality before it, are already completed in the Einstein theory.
One possible hypothesis might be that quantum statistical thermodynamics is what accomplished that last synthesis along that it involves still one dimension of another opposition as to reality: continuous (smooth) – discrete (quantum). All four theories mentioned above mean the thermodynamic and mechanical quantities implicitly only as continuous (smooth) though some of them introduce discrete elements.
Summarizing: The examples of a few statistical thermodynamic theories demonstrate that the concept of “reality” is changed or generalized, or even exemplified (i.e. “de-generalized”) from a theory to another. The change can be described as the explicit introduction of some new opposition as a still one and new dimension of relevant reality, and the generalization as a synthesis to some already involved opposition so that the theory is invariant to the relevant dimension of reality. The exemplification can also be observed being a condition for introducing a few new dimensions of reality. Thus, that exemplification simplifies reality in a dimension (“a step back”) complicating it in a few others (“two steps forward”). 

The presentation also as a PDF, a video or as slides @ EasyChair



The paper as a PDF or @ repositories: @ EasyChair, @ SocArhive, @ SSRN