Much Polyphony but Little Harmony: Otto Sackur's Groping for a Quantum Theory of Gases
Abstract
The endeavor of Otto Sackur (1880-1914) was driven, on the one hand, by his interest in Nernst's heat theorem, statistical mechanics, and the problem of chemical equilibrium and, on the other hand, by his goal to shed light on classical mechanics from the quantum vantage point. Inspired by the interplay between classical physics and quantum theory, Sackur chanced to expound his personal take on the role of the quantum in the changing landscape of physics in the turbulent 1910s. We tell the story of this enthusiastic practitioner of the old quantum theory and early contributor to quantum statistical mechanics, whose scientific ontogenesis provides a telling clue about the phylogeny of his contemporaries.
- Publication:
-
Physics in Perspective
- Pub Date:
- September 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1007/s00016-013-0110-8
- Bibcode:
- 2013PhP....15..295B
- Keywords:
-
- Otto Sackur;
- Richard Abegg;
- Ludwig Boltzmann;
- Max Born;
- Peter Debye;
- Arnold Eucken;
- Josiah Willard Gibbs;
- Fritz Haber;
- Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff;
- Walther Nernst;
- Max Planck;
- Otto Stern;
- Hugo Tetrode;
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry;
- first Solvay Conference;
- affinity;
- heat theorem;
- third law of thermodynamics;
- quantization;
- phase space;
- entropy;
- quantum theory of gases;
- quantum statistical mechanics;
- heat capacity;
- Sackur-Tetrode equation;
- law of mass action;
- chemical constant