Talk by Nick Tosh at MCMP (Wed. Dec.2)

[Dardashti, Radin]

Speaker: Nick Tosh (NUI Galway)
Date: Wed., Dec. 2
Location: Ludwigstr. 31, ground floor, room 021
Time: 18:15 -⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 19:45

Title: Ensemble realism: A new approach to statistical mechanical 
probability

Abstract:
“What we know about a body can generally be described most accurately 
and most simply by saying that it is one taken at random from a great 
number (ensemble) of bodies which are completely described.” So wrote 
Willard Gibbs in 1902, but with his fingers crossed, for he regarded 
ensembles as convenient fictions. A century later, they are still 
convenient, and we still have no settled account of the literal meaning 
of statistical mechanical probability assignments. My aim is to show how 
talk of ensembles might be taken seriously.