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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

The Foundations of Quantum Mechanics and the Approach to Thermodynamic Equilibrium

David Z. Albert

Published Jun 1, 1994• 39 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is argued that certain recent advances in the construction of a theory of the collapses of Quantum Mechanical wave functions suggest the possibility of new and improved foundations for statistical mechanics, foundations in which epistemic considerations play no role.
DOI
10.1093/bjps/45.2.669

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Statistical mechanics is often taken to be the paradigm of a successful inter-theoretic reduction, which explains the high-level phenomena by using the fundamental theories of physics together with some auxiliary hypotheses. The central idea of statistical mechanics is that in order to account for the thermodynamic regularities only partial information about the microstates is needed, concerning some macrovariables of them, that is, concerning the fact that they belong to certain macrostates in which all the microstates share the same macrovariables. An important example of a thermodynamic property, which needs to be explained in quantum statistical mechanics, is that of being in thermal equilibrium. The thermodynamic law of approach to equilibrium says that systems, prepared in non-equilibrium states, will invariably evolve to equilibrium states fixed by the constraints on these systems, and remain in them indefinitely.
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