Descripción
First Edition, perhaps a presentation copy (see below). viii, 51 pp; ads (dated February 1877). Original cloth. Signature of former owner (W. T.? Kearns) in one hand on front pastedown, 'from HWW' beneath it another (perhaps Watson's). Bookplate on pastedown (perhaps Kearns' but without a name). Else Very Good. In his Preface, Watson thanks James Clerk Maxwell (who was born after Watson, in 1831, but died before him, in 1879) for allowing him use of Maxwell's unpublished manuscripts on this subject, 'from which I have taken many valuable suggestions' (p. iv). Maxwell would in turn benefit from Watson's book: 'During his last two years Maxwell returned to molecular physics in earnest and produced two full-length papers, strikingly different in scope, each among the most powerful he ever wrote. The first, 'On Boltzmann's Theorem on the Average Distribution of Energy in a System of Material Points,' following a line of thought started by Boltzmann, who in 1868 had offered a new conjectural derivation of the distribution law based on combinatorial theory. A strange feature of the analysis was that it seemed to be free from restrictions on the time spent in encounters between molecules. … Maxwell now gave his own investigation of the problem, based partly on Boltzmann's ideas and partly on an extension of them contained in H. W. Watson's Treatise on the Kinetic Theory of Gases. Following Watson, Maxwell used Hamilton's form of the dynamical equations, and adopted the device of representing the state of motion of a large number n of particles by the location of a single point in a 'phase-space' of 2n dimensions, the coordinates of which are the positions and momenta of the particles. … Together with Boltzmann's articles this paper of Maxwell's marks the emergence of statistical mechanics as an independent science… See the two eds. of Watson s Treatise on Kinetic Theory of Gases (Oxford, 1876 [offered here]; 2nd ed., 1893)' (C. W. F. Everitt, 'James Clerk Maxwell', D.S.B. IX: 223-4, 229). N° de ref. del artículo 16303
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Detalles bibliográficos
Título: A Treatise on the Kinetic Theory of Gases.
Editorial: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1876.
Año de publicación: 1876
Encuadernación: Hardcover
Condición: Very Good
Condición de la sobrecubierta: No Jacket
Edición: 1st Edition