Physicists have made significant progress in solving a century-old problem. Researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan have developed a framework that connects classical mechanics and thermodynamics, two fields that have long been difficult to unify.
The team’s work focuses on Boltzmann’s kinetic theory, which explains how particles move and interact with each other. They also drew inspiration from Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and the Navier-Stokes equations, used to describe fluid flow in air and water.
One of the major challenges in this problem has been time itself. Researchers have struggled to reconcile the symmetric nature of Newton’s laws with the one-way direction of thermodynamic processes. The team tackled this issue by designing their methods to avoid paradoxes, using Feynman diagrams to track particle interactions over time.
Their approach has led to a unified view that encompasses three levels: individual collisions, the kinetic picture, and classical fluid models. This framework could have significant practical implications for fields like weather forecasting, climate modeling, and engineering design.
The researchers’ findings build on earlier work by Oscar Lanford, who proposed a partial solution to this problem. The team’s extension of these ideas has shown that Boltzmann’s equation holds longer than previously known, offering a deeper understanding of complex fluids and their behavior.
If confirmed by peer review, the broader impact of this work could be significant, with potential applications in plasma science, geophysical fluid dynamics, and even quantum systems. The study is currently available as a preprint on arXiv, and specialists are eagerly awaiting further research and verification of these methods.
Source: https://www.earth.com/news/mathematicians-may-have-solved-a-125-year-old-problem-linking-the-laws-of-physics