Timeline for How to justify "correct Boltzmann counting" (dividing by $N!$) without resorting to quantum mechanics?

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Sep 30, 2019 at 14:14	comment	added	eugenhu		... that A1 and A2 would lead to contradicting predictions of equilibrium behaviour.
Sep 30, 2019 at 14:14	comment	added	eugenhu		... I preferred to start from assuming each point in phase space (even if they correspond to the same "physical configuration") is equiprobable (call this assumption A2) as this could perhaps be justified by Liouville's theorem and the ergodic hypothesis. I'm not sure how one can justify A1 from other physical principles (this is essentially my question). Of course, both A1 and A2 give the same macrostate probabilities when the system is closed and $N$ isn't changing but I was concerned that if we had two systems with particle counts $N_1$ and $N_2$, exchanging identical particles,...
Sep 30, 2019 at 14:13	comment	added	eugenhu		Thanks for the answer. I've just read the section you were referring to in the Landau & Lifshitz book. I understand that in a system with $N$ identical gas particles, there will be multiple points in phase space that correspond to the same "physical configuration". I think, my main dissatisfaction was that I was not convinced that "physically unique configurations" should be equiprobable (for future reference call this assumption A1)...
Sep 30, 2019 at 13:23	history	answered	valerio	CC BY-SA 4.0