My Vienna: Ludwig Boltzmann was here
The name is a large presence, particularly to many in science.
To others, the name might have little significance as any other name, like Helmut Grossuhrmacher. OK, I made that name up.
A name I didn’t make up is Ludwig Boltzmann, whose contributions to science are fundamental in an understanding of heat- or thermal-physics, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics. After several years of undergraduate- and graduate-level physics, Boltzmann is one of many names imprinted into memory, firmly established in the left-side of my brain.
Boltzmann highlights
• b/✵ 20 February 1844 – d/✟ 5 September 1906.
• Born and raised in Vienna, Boltzmann enroled at age 19 in the University of Vienna to study mathematics and physics.
• Supervised by Josef Stefan, Boltzmann completed his doctoral dissertation “Über die mechanische Bedeutung des zweiten Hauptsatzes der mechanischen Wärmetheorie” (On the mechanical significance of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) in 1866 at the age of 22.
• 1869–1873: University of Graz, with visits to Heidelberg and Berlin.
• 1873–1876: University of Vienna.
• 1876–1890: University of Graz.
• 1890–1894: (Ludwig Maximilian) University of Munich.
• 1894–1900: after Josef Stefan’s retirement, Boltzmann returns as professor of mathematics and physics at University of Vienna.
• 1900–1902: Leipzig University.
• 1902–1906: University of Vienna; he also teaches physics, mathematics, and philosophy.
• Doctoral students Boltzmann supervised and advised included: Paul Ehrenfest, Lise Meitner, Stefan Meyer, Walther Nernst.
• Speaking tour of the United States in 1905, including his stay that summer in Berkeley at the University of California. Evident from his trip report, Reise eines deutschen Professors ins Eldorado, is his sense of humour.
Time has been kind to Vienna, a city filled with notable personalities in arts, architecture, music, and science. Throughout its cemeteries, the city has assigned “graves of honour” (Ehrengrab) for many, including Boltzmann. Finding his final spot was one of many favourite moments in 2018. However, Boltzmann’s significance to the University of Vienna, to the physics world, and to time I spent in physics persuaded me to create a short (walking-)tour of Vienna to highlight some of his traces and memorialization in the city.
Around the city
The following is only a start; there’ll be more soon.
- Boltzmanngasse (9.)
- Döbling Friedhof (19.)
- Physikalisches Institut (9.)
- Universität Wien (1.)
- Wohnhaus, Cottageviertel (18.)
- Zentralfriedhof (11.)
• Some science
• Sources
Boltzmanngasse (9.)
Off Währinger Strasse and lying adjacent to Ehrenhaft-Steindler-Platz is Boltzmanngasse. This small street in the city’s 9th district was renamed after Boltzmann by the city of Vienna in 1913.
Döbling Friedhof (19.)
Döbling Cemetery
Upon his death during family vacation in 1906, Boltzmann’s family returned to Vienna and buried him in Döbling’s 2nd cemetery which had been in operation in the city’s 19th district since 1885. In December 1929, Boltzmann’s remains were exhumed and moved to a “grave of honour” in the city’s central cemetery; see below.
Physikalisches Institut, ehem. (9.)
Institute of physics (former)
From 1875–1913, the University of Vienna’s institute of physics was located at Türkenstrasse 3 in the city’s 9th district. In 1913, the institute moved north to a new building on Strudlhofgasse. Türkenstrasse 3 became home to the Afro-Asiatisches Institut (Afro-Asian Institute) before the program’s termination in 2018. The property continues to be owned and operated by the Archdiocese Vienna. A memorial plaque has been mounted on Café afro’s outside wall since 2001 in recognition of the institute and its renowned researchers, including Boltzmann.
GEDENKTAFEL (English translation below)In diesem Hause befanden sich von 1875 bis 1913 die Physikalischen Institute der Universität Wien.
Hier wirkten:Josef Loschmidt, 1821–1895, Größe der Moleküle
Josef Stefan, 1835–1893, Strahlungsgesetz
Ludwig Boltzmann, 1844–1906, Entropie und Wahrscheinlichkeit
Franz S. Exner, 1849–1926, Luftelektrizität
Stefan Meyer, 1872–1949, Radioaktivität
Egon von Schweidler, 1873–1948, Radioaktives Zerfallsgesetz
Friedrich Hasenöhrl, 1874–1915, Masse-Energie-Beziehung
Lise Meitner, 1878–1968, Kernspaltung
Viktor F. Hess, 1883–1964, Kosmische Strahlung, Nobelpreis 1936
Fritz Kohlrausch, 1884–1953, Raman–Spektren
Erwin Schrödinger, 1887–1961, Wellenmechanik, Nobelpreis 1933Gewidmet von Mitgliedern und Freunden der Österr. Physikalischen Gesellschaft anlässlich ihres fünfzigjährigen Bestehens im Jahre 2000.
MEMORIAL PLAQUEThe University of Vienna’s Institute of Physics was at this location from 1875 to 1913. The institute’s researchers included:
Josef Loschmidt, 1821–1895, sizes of molecules
Josef Stefan, 1835–1893, radiation law
Ludwig Boltzmann, 1844–1906, entropy and probability
Franz S. Exner, 1849–1926, electricity in the atmosphere
Stefan Meyer, 1872–1949, radioactivity
Egon von Schweidler, 1873–1948, law of radioactive decay
Friedrich Hasenöhrl, 1874–1915, mass-energy relationship
Lise Meitner, 1878–1968, nuclear fission
Viktor F. Hess, 1883–1964, cosmic radiation, Nobel Prize 1936
Fritz Kohlrausch, 1884–1953, Raman spectra
Erwin Schrödinger, 1887–1961, (quantum-) wave mechanics, Nobel Prize 1933Dedicated by members and friends of the Austrian Physical Society on its 50th anniversary in 2000.
Universität Wien (1.)
University of Vienna main building, arcade courtyard
At the University of Vienna’s main building on the Ringstrasse, the courtyard arcade inside is home to many memorial plaques and statues in honour of the university’s history with its faculty members. At the northeast corner (next to the small café) is a memorial to Boltzmann, created by Leopold Brandeisky and inaugurated in 1912. The monument caption reads:
geb(oren) 1844, gest(orben) 1906.
Professor der Mathematik, 1873–1876.
Professor der theoretischen Physik: 1894–1900, 1902–1906.Born 1844, died 1906.
Professor of mathematics, 1873–1876.
Professor of theoretical physics, 1894–1900, 1902–1906.
Wohnhaus, Cottageviertel (18.)
Family home in the Cottage Quarter
From 1902 to 1906, Ludwig Boltzmann and his family lived in this house in the Cottage Quarter in the city’s 18th district. Architect Heinrich Ferstel co-founded the Wiener Cottage Verein (Vienna Cottage Association) in 1872 to establish within the city’s Währing-Döbling a new kind of residential architecture in the style of an English “garden city”.
Zentralfriedhof (11.)
Central cemetery in the 11th district
Originally buried in Döbling cemetery (see above) in 1906, his remains were exhumed, moved, and reburied in a “grave of honour” in the city’s central cemetery in December 1929. The location of Boltzmann’s grave is group 14C, number 1.
Some Science with the name Boltzmann
Here below is some physics about which I will absolutely “nerd up”: some of the results done by Boltzmann himself, and some of it simply named after Boltzmann. The following may not be for the “faint of heart,” but I’m certain anyone with a mind can handle it.
Boltzmann constant
Named after Boltzmann, this constant relates the average thermal energy of particles with the overall temperature of the system. The constant has physical units “energy divided by temperature” which are the same as units of entropy; the units are Joules per degrees Kelvin in the SI-system and ergs per degrees Kelvin in the cgs-system. An estimate of this number in cgs-units appears in papers published in 1900 and 1901 by Max Planck; see Sources below.
Boltzmann transport equation
Formulated by Boltzmann in 1872 to describe the statistical behaviour of a thermodynamic system not in a state of equilibrium; generally, an equation describing the change of a macroscopic quantity (e.g., charge, energy, large numbers of particles) in a thermodynamic system. For a set of particles (e.g., molecules), the probability density function, f, is a function of position, velocity, and time; with external force F, particle mass m, particle velocity v. The “collision” term appears at the right-hand side of the equation.
Maxwell-Boltzmann (velocity, probability) distribution
In developing the physics for the kinetic theory of gases, both Scotland’s James Maxwell (of the electromagnetism equations) in 1860 and Austria’s Boltzmann in 1872 derived this expression independently, to describe a distribution of non-interacting particles (e.g., molecules) in thermal equilibrium within a closed container. The other terms include particle mass m, particle velocity v, system temperature T, and Boltzmann constant kB.
(Planck-) Boltzmann entropy expression
for entropy S, Boltzmann constant kB, logarithm function ‘log’, and the number of possible microscopic arrangements W corresponding to the same overall macroscopic state. In 1854, German physicist Rudolf Clausius described the ratio of heat-energy to temperature as “equivalence value” and, by 1865, he coined the term “entropy”, deliberately similar in form to the word “energy.” In his 1877 article or paper, Boltzmann described a quantity called “Permutabilitätsmass” or “permutability measure”, but the above expression for entropy appears for the first time in a 1901 paper by Max Planck in his interpretation of Boltzmann’s work; see Sources below for these two articles. (The impact of Planck’s 1901 paper is “triply massive”, because he formulates light as individual units with energy ε and frequency f [“ε = hf”] and he estimates the value for constant h, which would eventually be named after him.)
Stefan-Boltzmann Law
The total radiant power, P, emitted by a blackbody (perfect absorber and emitter of radiation) is proportional to the fourth-power of temperature T; the constant of proportionality is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant σ. When the temperature is doubled/halved, the radiated power increases/decreases by a factor of 16. Both constant and law are named after Josef Stefan and Ludwig Boltzmann. Stefan developed the equation above in 1879 as a result from his laboratory experiments, and Boltzmann used contemporary state-of-the-art theory in thermodynamics to derive the same equation in 1884.
Sources
• Boltzmann, L., Über die mechanische Bedeutung des zweiten Hauptsatzes der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (On the Mechanical Significance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics), Ph.D. dissertation, 1866, Universität Wien: also, in Wiener Berichte, vol. 53 (1866), pp. 195–220. Available from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München: <https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10133426?page=3> [accessed Feb 2024].
• Boltzmann, L., Über die Beziehung zwischen dem zweiten Hauptsatze des mechanischen Wärmetheorie und der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung, respective den Sätzen über das Wärmgleichgewicht (On the Relationship between the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Probability Calculations for Conditions of Thermal Equilibrium), Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, LXXVI, Abteilung II (1877), pp. 373–435. English translation by Sharp & Matschinsky (Entropy, vol. 17, pp. 1971–2009, 2015); available at <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275220813_Translation_of_Ludwig_Boltzmann%27s_Paper_On_the_Relationship_between_the_Second_Fundamental_Theorem_of_the_Mechanical_Theory_of_Heat_and_Probability_Calculations_Regarding_the_Conditions_for_Thermal_Eq> [accessed Feb 2024].
• Boltzmann, L., Reise eines deutschen Professors ins Eldorado, Populäre Schriften (2005), pp. 403–435. Available from Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek): <http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/12968> [accessed Feb 2024].
• Czeike, F., Historisches Lexikon Wien, in 6 Bänden (Wien: Kremayr & Scheriau/Orac, 2004); available from Wien Stadtbibliothek: <https://www.digital.wienbibliothek.at/wbrobv/content/titleinfo/1112764> [accessed Feb 2024].
• Morowitz, H.J., Entropy and the Magic Flute (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
• Planck, M., Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspektrum (On the Theory of the Energy Distribution Law of the Normal Spectrum), Verhandlungen der deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft, vol. 2 (1900), pp. 237–245. English translation available at <https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2-%E2%80%93-On-the-Theory-of-the-Energy-Distribution-Law-of-Planck/7e04cb600251a7551e4651ed676883e0ba7c154b> [accessed Feb 2024].
• Planck, M., Über das Gesetz der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum (On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum), Annalen der Physik, vol. 4 (1901), pp. 553–563. English translation available at <https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/On-the-Law-of-Distribution-of-Energy-in-the-Normal/ab9c1ae192eb34d7504062230feac550f9a44469> [accessed Feb 2024].
• Wiener Archivinformationsystem (WAIS, Vienna archive information system) at the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv (WStLA, Vienna city and state archives); available at <https://www.wien.gv.at/actaproweb2/benutzung/index.xhtml> with usage license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 [accessed Feb 2024].
With the exception of the Meldezettel from Wien WStLA, I made all remaining images above with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime in 2018, 2022, and 2023. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-ry6.
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