Timeline for How does Einstein's paper on Brownian motion actually prove atoms exist?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 6, 2023 at 6:45 | vote | accept | Pecan Lim | ||
| Oct 5, 2023 at 7:14 | comment | added | Roger V. | @PecanLim Yes, but Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat specifically refers to the molecular explanation. | |
| Oct 5, 2023 at 6:56 | comment | added | Pecan Lim | @RogerVadim, the ideal gas law and Van't Hoff's law can all be given a reinterpretation in terms of fluctuations in pressure and density of continuous matter. That is why in 1905 kinetic theory was seen as merely a heuristic device by some. | |
| Oct 5, 2023 at 6:28 | answer | added | Pecan Lim | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 21:05 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | There are not absolute proofs in science at all. What we can do, though, is make things have to be "ever more convoluted" to not have a certain thing. Atoms and molecules are one of those things that it'd take an awful lot of "convolution" to "not have" given existing evidence, so we presume that that means they must (in some form) exist. FWIW, another good example from Einstein is the photoelectric effect and the photon. The photoelectric effect doesn't require a photon (see a perhaps-famous paper by Lamb and Scully), but it "makes things more convoluted" to explain without one. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 15:15 | answer | added | Barmar | timeline score: 8 | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 14:31 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
tried to make title better
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| Oct 3, 2023 at 8:49 | comment | added | Vladimir F Героям слава | "Also can't the random movement and diffusion law movement of the particles be just as well explained by fluctuations of pressure and density of continuous matter?" The onus is on someone who wants to propose such an alternative theory that would also give correct quantitative predictions. No-one succeeded so far. Note that in theory of turbulence, so called eddy viscosity models make arguments similar to the kinetic theory of gases, but with chaotic fluctuations of velocity. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 8:25 | comment | added | Vladimir F Героям слава | ... The whole article is of interest chemistryworld.com/features/claiming-einstein-for-chemistry/… The mentioned Wilhelm Ostwald later two times nominated Einstein for the Nobel price. | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 8:25 | comment | added | Vladimir F Героям слава | @RogerVadim "He was aware that some eminent scientists, among them Wilhelm Ostwald and Ernst Mach, questioned whether atoms and molecules existed at all. It is tempting now to see these anti-atomists as perverse, but at the turn of the century there was not a single piece of direct evidence for the atomic theory of matter. Most physicists and chemists took this theory for granted, and it was a central assumption of the kinetic theory of gases; but Mach pointed out that it was poor science to postulate the existence of entities that could not be perceived." ... | |
| Oct 3, 2023 at 5:01 | comment | added | Roger V. | @Mark but the paper in question explicitly assumed that atoms exist. See also the answer by ThomasFritsch. | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 21:55 | comment | added | Mark | @RogerVadim, in 1905, the existence of atoms was still an open question. The majority view was that they were real, but there was a minority (backed by some respectable arguments) that viewed atoms as merely a useful construct for figuring out which chemical reactions were possible. You can see a similar thing today with quarks: a majority view that sees them as real, and a minority view that they're merely a useful mathematical construct. | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 17:39 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Oct 2, 2023 at 17:39 | history | reopened |
Michael Seifert Thomas Fritsch John Rennie |
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| Oct 2, 2023 at 12:59 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Oct 2, 2023 at 17:39 | |||||
| Oct 2, 2023 at 12:12 | history | closed |
Roger V. Miyase Jon Custer |
Not suitable for this site | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 9:56 | answer | added | Thomas Fritsch | timeline score: 29 | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 9:52 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 2, 2023 at 12:12 | |||||
| Oct 2, 2023 at 9:43 | comment | added | naturallyInconsistent | Could you look at the derived results and take appropriate limits? For example, the limit of continuous matter should be arrived at by taking, say, $N\to\infty$ and radius $P\to\infty$ and so forth, keeping density constant, etc. Some of the derived results would be ridiculous, and that could be taken as evidence in favour of atoms, since atoms would have specific fixed finite values for those quantities as opposed to the nonsensical limits. It would be the first few times after Planck's Law that continuum limits were nonsensical. | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 9:33 | comment | added | Roger V. | Does the article really tries to prove that atoms exist? I think it takes this for granted (as the title suggests, since it refers to the Molecular-Kinetic theory) - that atoms exist was well-known before Einstein. | |
| Oct 2, 2023 at 9:29 | history | edited | Thomas Fritsch | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added a link to the mentioned paper
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| Oct 2, 2023 at 7:36 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ |
edited tags
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| S Oct 2, 2023 at 6:44 | review | First questions | |||
| Oct 2, 2023 at 7:59 | |||||
| S Oct 2, 2023 at 6:44 | history | asked | Pecan Lim | CC BY-SA 4.0 |