Aarati Asundi (00:00) A warning to our listeners, this episode contains discussions around suicide. Hi everyone and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape the world. I'm Aarati. Jyoti Asundi (00:26) And I'm her mom, Jyoti. Aarati Asundi (00:29) And we are at the end of the year and the final episode of our December Thermodynamics Extravaganza. Jyoti Asundi (00:38) Yes, the trilogy where we started all the way with Sadi Carnot and then went on where we built on Sadi Carnot's work with Rudolf Clausius and now you're taking me to step three where more was built on the foundation of these works. Aarati Asundi (00:58) Yes, so today we're going to be talking about the scientist that my brother originally requested that kicked off this whole series. Jyoti Asundi (01:05) Yes. Aarati Asundi (01:08) He said you should do an episode on Ludwig Boltzmann Jyoti Asundi (01:12) Ludwig Boltzmann, okay. Aarati Asundi (01:14) And he is famous for his work around especially the second law of thermodynamics, which is all about entropy. Jyoti Asundi (01:22) Quickly, just for me and for the listeners, would you be able to state the first law and second law before we go forward? So I have, I get my bearings one more time. Aarati Asundi (01:32) Yeah, so I'll mention it again in the episode, but the first law was that energy is conserved... Jyoti Asundi (01:39) Yes. Aarati Asundi (01:39) That it can be neither created or destroyed. Jyoti Asundi (01:42) Yes. Aarati Asundi (01:42) And the second law is that entropy in the universe is always headed towards a maximum. Entropy is always increasing. Jyoti Asundi (01:49) Yes, entropy is always increasing, yes. And now Boltzmann is working around this second law. Aarati Asundi (01:58) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (01:59) Basically refining it and understanding it better. Is that what you're saying or is he building on that? Aarati Asundi (02:03) He's adding to it. Jyoti Asundi (02:05) Oh nice. Aarati Asundi (02:05) Yeah, he's adding to it and giving us a new understanding of what that second law is. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (02:11) Okay, yes and its implications obviously. Aarati Asundi (02:15) And what entropy is. And so again, if you haven't listened to the previous two episodes on Sadi Carnot and Rudolf Clausius, I highly go and listen to those first and then come back and listen to this because it does kind of follow a chronological path. Jyoti Asundi (02:33) These three are definitely linked, yeah. And they should be tackled in sequence for the full benefit. Yes. Aarati Asundi (02:41) Yes. But assuming that you already have listened to those two episodes, let's dive in now to Ludwig Boltzmann's life. Ludwig was born on February 20th, 1844 in Vienna, Austria. He was born in the middle of the night between two special days. The previous day had been Shrove Tuesday, which is observed by many Christian communities and is a day of feasting and confessing sins. And then the following day is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, where people fast and they pray and reflect for 46 days. And then Lent is ended with Easter. Jyoti Asundi (03:22) Okay. Aarati Asundi (03:22) So Ludwig is born between these two days where Tuesday is this day of celebration and happiness and feasting and all that. And then Ash Wednesday is much more somber, much more reflective. Jyoti Asundi (03:37) Yes. Aarati Asundi (03:37) We're sacrificing something for Lent. And so Ludwig later on in his life said that this was the reason- the fact that he was born between these two days was the reason that his moods would often swing between great happiness and deep depression. Jyoti Asundi (03:55) Oh he was subject to those kind of mood swings. Aarati Asundi (03:58) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (03:58) That's very often, sometimes that is due to a chemical imbalance actually in the brain and that's so painful actually. Aarati Asundi (04:06) Yeah, and we will definitely be getting a little bit more into that later on in the episode. Jyoti Asundi (04:12) Okay. Aarati Asundi (04:13) He was born to his mother, Maria Katharina Pauernfeind, and his father, who was also named Ludwig, who was a tax official. They had two more children after Ludwig, a son named Albert and a daughter named Hedwig. Any Harry Potter fans out there will remember Hedwig as Harry's owl, the name of Harry's Owl. Jyoti Asundi (04:35) Oh yes, I thought that the name a bell, but I couldn't place it. Aarati Asundi (04:41) Yeah. It's one of those definite like old timey German, Austrian kind of names. The family was fairly well off. Their father made a small salary, but the bulk of their wealth actually came from their mother's side, family were merchants from Salzburg. Jyoti Asundi (04:57) Okay. Aarati Asundi (04:58) Yeah, so the family was pretty rich and they could afford for all of their children to be homeschooled by private tutors until high school. By the time Ludwig was ready to go to high school, the family had moved to Linz in Upper Austria. Ludwig was almost always at the top of his class and loved math and science more than any other subject. He also started taking piano lessons, which he also loved and he continued to play throughout his life, especially pieces by Beethoven, who was his favorite composer. Jyoti Asundi (05:29) This link between math and music is known. People who are good at math are usually able to catch on to music pretty well as well. Aarati Asundi (05:38) Yes. I know there's some deep correlation there. I've never been smart enough to understand it myself. But I bet if you asked Arun, he would know all about it. He would know all the different mathematical. This is how you can convert the chords into this equation. It's like, really? OK, great. This is why this piece is so brilliant. It's because it follows these mathematical steps or whatever. It's like, OK, great. Jyoti Asundi (06:05) That's right. That's right. Yes. In a way it's good because you know music is always a great source of joy. So that's nice. Especially considering your initial comment about how he had mood swings. I feel music would have helped him. OK. Aarati Asundi (06:22) Yes. Sadly though, when he was 15, his father passed away from tuberculosis. And shortly after this, his younger brother Albert also died from pneumonia. Jyoti Asundi (06:34) Oh no! Oh no! Aarati Asundi (06:35) And so all of a sudden, it went from this very happy, childhood and family life that he had until this point to, you know, a very depressing, sad state. Jyoti Asundi (06:46) Somber. Yeah, I can imagine their household suddenly being so very somber and weighed down by the loss and grief of all these people who... Aarati Asundi (06:47) Yeah, two big losses very shortly one after the other. Jyoti Asundi (06:59) That's horrible. That's truly horrible. Aarati Asundi (07:02) So after that, his mother poured all the money that they had into his education. He graduated with honors from high school and then enrolled in the University of Vienna in 1863 to study math and physics. Here he became very close with the director of the Institute, Josef Stefan, who later discovered the relationship between radiant heat and temperature, and that allowed him to be the first person to logical temperature of the surface of the sun at 9810 degrees Fahrenheit or 5430 degrees Celsius. Jyoti Asundi (07:41) Wow, wow. At those extreme temperatures, what does it matter? Aarati Asundi (07:47) What is accurate? Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (07:49) Yeah, what's accurate and what's the difference between 9,000 and 8,000 degree Fahrenheit? You're crisp burnt toast anyway in both cases. And how to prove it anyway?Wow. Aarati Asundi (08:00) Yeah, but I was impressed. I looked up the actual, like what we think it is today... Jyoti Asundi (08:06) Yeah? Aarati Asundi (08:06) ...and he was spot on. He was like absolutely spot on. Jyoti Asundi (08:10) So he figured out a way of getting it right. Wow! Wow! That's quite amazing! Aarati Asundi (08:15) Yeah, yeah. So he was able to say like, based on the distance the sun is from the earth and how the heat radiates through space and the warmth that we feel here on earth and our earth's surface temperature it makes sense then that we can back calculate the temperature of the sun. Jyoti Asundi (08:33) Wow. ⁓ that's impressive. That's impressive calculations. Aarati Asundi (08:38) And it also speaks to the fact that all these physicists are interested in this heat, radiation, temperature. it's a big thing that, like thermodynamics is going strong. Jyoti Asundi (08:49) Yeah. It just like today, AI, anybody, anybody wants to talk about anything important, It's AI, AI. and I bet you that's exactly how it was with thermodynamics in those days. everybody who is anybody is like, I'm doing thermodynamics. Aarati Asundi (09:03) Yeah, I'm doing anything with energy, heat, all of that. So Joseph Stefan took Ludwig under his wing and gave him papers to read written by some of the most prominent physicists at the time. However, Ludwig at this point didn't know a word of English. And so Josef gave him a English grammar book alongside all of these scientific papers so he could translate them. Jyoti Asundi (09:28) Oh goodness, that's an additional layer of challenge there. Aarati Asundi (09:32) Yeah, like it's not hard enough to read scientific papers already. You now have to translate it from... Jyoti Asundi (09:36) Yes, now you have to translate it and hope that you understood it in the correct context. Aarati Asundi (09:41) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (09:42) Difficult. Aarati Asundi (09:43) But he did, and he was particularly fascinated by the writings of James Maxwell. So James Maxwell had been inspired by Rudolf Clausius's work on the mean length of path of a particle of air or gas between consecutive collisions. So remember we talked about that? Jyoti Asundi (10:02) That's right. That's right. Yes, they travel very fast and you would think that by the time you even blink the molecule is far away but in fact they don't travel too much because there is so much... they're in a crowded space It's a very tightly packed arena of molecules that we are living in. Aarati Asundi (10:25) Exactly. So they're moving fast, they're colliding with each other, and they're not able to move very far. Jyoti Asundi (10:30) Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (10:32) Yeah. And so James Maxwell took this idea that these molecules are colliding with each other all the time and ran with it, basically. Jyoti Asundi (10:42) Yes. Yes. Aarati Asundi (10:43) In the 1860s, he wrote a series of papers on the dynamical theory of gases, where he used this core idea to try to determine exactly how fast or how far the molecules would be moving, given certain conditions. Jyoti Asundi (10:58) Yes. Aarati Asundi (10:59) So we have this analogy that we're going to be using throughout this episode, which is imagine a box, a bunch of tiny, round, hard floating particles. And these represent your gas molecules. And they're constantly moving and colliding with each other. They're all floating around. Jyoti Asundi (11:20) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (11:21) So then came up with his theories by basically asking if two small hard objects collide, what happens to the energy? And so this is all like Newton's laws, right? Laws of motion, laws of mass and energy, two objects Where does the energy go? The very basics, like the first things that you learn in physics, he's applying those kinds of ideas to this box of gas. Jyoti Asundi (11:46) Yes. Aarati Asundi (11:47) And importantly, he recognized that if the molecules are all moving randomly, they cannot all be moving at the same speed. Because if you imagine two molecules, for example, that have the same speed and they collide with each other head on, then in a perfect world where we can ignore energy loss and heat loss and all that, in a perfect world, the two objects would collide and bounce off of each other going opposite directions, but in the same speed that they were initially.... Jyoti Asundi (12:18) With the same speed. Correct. Correct. Aarati Asundi (12:20) Yes. But the molecules in the box are not always going to collide with each other head on. You know? They have this 3D space that they're moving around in. Jyoti Asundi (12:30) That's right. They're going to graze on each other sometimes. They're just going to be just touching each other. Many things can happen. They can ricochet off of each other. So many things can happen. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (12:40) Yeah, and they might hit the wall instead of another molecule. You know, the stationary wall of the box. Jyoti Asundi (12:44) That's right. That changes the dynamics entirely. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (12:48) Yeah, and they're all moving randomly. So with this randomness in movement, it's impossible that all the molecules are moving the same speed because the same energy is not going to be transferred every single time the molecules hit each other. So because of that, some molecules have to be moving slower and some have to be moving faster than each other. Jyoti Asundi (13:09) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (13:10) And so if you plotted the speeds of all the molecules on a graph, you would get this kind of bell-shaped curve where a few molecules are on one end of the graph that are moving very slow and a few molecules on the other end of the graph are moving very fast. But majority of the molecules fall somewhere in the middle. Jyoti Asundi (13:33) Correct. Correct Aarati Asundi (13:34) This reminded me actually of grading curves in college where... Jyoti Asundi (13:37) Yes, correct, correct. Aarati Asundi (13:38) ...you would have a few people who did very poorly, you did a few people who just wrecked the curve, but then a bulk of the people kind of fell somewhere in the middle. Jyoti Asundi (13:48) Yes, a solid B right there in the middle. Yes. Aarati Asundi (13:49) Yeah. So if you now take this idea that there's molecules moving at different speeds, now if you change things like temperature or pressure of the box, that means on average the molecules will speed up or slow down, but there will still be individual molecules that are moving faster or slower than others. Jyoti Asundi (14:14) Yes, maybe the entire bell curve will shift a bit. Aarati Asundi (14:18) Exactly. Yes. And so that's what Maxwell was doing. Jyoti Asundi (14:22) OK, so let's say it was they were all moving at 100 meters per second. Now they were moving 200 meters per second as on an average and the curve is around around the midpoint of 200. The bell is around 200 versus 100, something like that. I'm just making up numbers. Aarati Asundi (14:40) Yes, yes, but that's exactly what he was doing. He was like, if your temperature and pressure of the box are at x and y, then you get this shape bell curve. If your temperature and pressure are at y and z, then you get this shape of a bell curve. And that what he was, Maxwell was proposing. Jyoti Asundi (14:58) Yes. Okay. Aarati Asundi (15:00) And so Ludwig Boltzmann, who is 13 years younger than James Maxwell, is still an undergrad, and he's reading James Maxwell's papers that he's translated into, from English. Jyoti Asundi (15:11) Yeah, painstakingly from English, yes. Aarati Asundi (15:13) And he's like, yeah, absolutely. That makes a ton of sense. I love this idea. And so he decides to dive into this relationship between thermodynamics and statistics. So three years later, Ludwig graduates with his PhD, and in 1867, he became an assistant professor at the University of Vienna. Jyoti Asundi (15:35) Wow, okay. Aarati Asundi (15:37) Yeah, he's just soaring. Two years later, in 1869, he was appointed chair of mathematical physics at the University of Graz at just 25 years old. Jyoti Asundi (15:48) I was about to say that actually that he is less than 30. I was trying to calculate very fast in my head, but you did that for me. At 25 years old, he's chairing the entire mathematical department. Aarati Asundi (16:01) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (16:02) That is quite remarkable. Aarati Asundi (16:05) Mathematical physics, I should say. Jyoti Asundi (16:07) Mathematical physics, okay. Wow, nice. Aarati Asundi (16:10) Over the next several years, Ludwig threw himself into the work of refining and generalizing James Maxwell's ideas. And in 1872, he publishes a paper called Further Studies on Thermal Equilibrium Among Gas Molecules. And people kind of comment like that title tells you nothing. But this paper is actually one of his works. Jyoti Asundi (16:37) Oh it's like a seminal, it's a seminal contribution. Aarati Asundi (16:40) Absolutely, absolutely seminal. So there's a lot of math in this paper, but there are a few main takeaways that build on James Maxwell's ideas. The first is that when James Maxwell was theorizing about the different speeds of molecules in the box, he was making a lot of assumptions. He was, for example, saying, let's assume that when the collisions between molecules happen, there's no net loss of speed or energy. And Ludwig Boltzmann said, well, you we know the laws of conservation of energy. We know those equations. Jyoti Asundi (17:15) Yes, how can we assume that? Aarati Asundi (17:18) Yeah, let's not assume with anything. Let's start with the equations that we know. Let's start with the math equations that we already know. Same way James Maxwell had also said, I'm assuming that the molecules are probably moving completely randomly. Jyoti Asundi (17:32) Yes. Aarati Asundi (17:33) Whereas Ludwig Boltzmann said, well, we know the laws of statistical probability that govern that kind of movement. So let's use these equations that we already know. And from these equations, that were already known about Newton's laws and the conservation of energy and probability, Ludwig was able to derive his way to Maxwell's same conclusion and say, yes, Maxwell is right. But now it's not something that's based on an assumption or a hypothesis. It's now a law of nature that adheres to what we already know mathematically. Jyoti Asundi (18:12) Hmm. He basically validated it with strong proof. Aarati Asundi (18:17) Yes, And said, yes, Maxwell is right, and here's the math that proves all of that based in what we already know. Jyoti Asundi (18:25) Nice. Aarati Asundi (18:30) So now today, that Gaussian kind of curve maps out the speeds of the molecules in a gas or liquid is known as the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution after these two scientists. Jyoti Asundi (18:39) Oh okay okay! Aarati Asundi (18:41) The other thing Boltzmann was able to do was relate Maxwell's distributions to time. Remember, again, we were talking about how Maxwell was saying, you know, if you have a box at a certain temperature and pressure, this is what the curve will look like. If you change the temperature, then you'll get a new curve. And the new curve looks like this. Jyoti Asundi (19:01) Yes. Aarati Asundi (19:02) But Boltzmann was able to say "Okay, so you have a box of molecules at an initial temperature and pressure, and then you start adding heat to increase the temperature. So as soon as you start adding the heat, the molecules will all start to move a little bit faster. They were initially moving at 100 meters per second, Maxwell was able to draw a curve. Then you heated up the box and they got to 200 meters per second. And again, Maxwell was able to draw a curve. But it took you like, you know, 20 minutes to get from 100 meters per second to 200 meters per second. So what was happening at 15 minutes? What did the molecules look like when they're not quite at the new equilibrium yet? Jyoti Asundi (19:47) Yes. Aarati Asundi (19:48) And so Ludwig published the Boltzmann equation, which is now what we call it, which allows us to predict the probability that a molecule will be at a certain position with a certain speed at a particular time. So he added that time element into Maxwell's work. Jyoti Asundi (20:07) One more dimension into the equation. Yes. Aarati Asundi (20:11) And so with that, then he could show again that Maxwell is right. You're starting with one curve. You're ending with another curve. But now you can kind of follow the curve as it shifts and settles into the new equilibrium. So it's like, yeah, Maxwell got the starting point correct and the ending point correct. But what happens in between, Boltzmann was able to show that. Jyoti Asundi (20:35) Wow, wow. Aarati Asundi (20:37) Yes, so pretty cool stuff. Jyoti Asundi (20:39) Yes, yes, quite impressive that he's able to chase these kind of minute questions all the way. That's quite amazing. Aarati Asundi (20:48) And also, he was able to generalize this curve now, not to just the molecule's speed and velocity, but to their general energy. And that's very, very useful for physics and chemistry to not just be restricted to a molecule's speed, but just the bigger concept of how much energy does this molecule have. Jyoti Asundi (21:10) How much energy does the molecule carry because that's the potential that it has in order to make work happen. That's the energy that is sitting in the molecule and that's what can then become the work that the molecule can convert it to or heat or whatever it is. Aarati Asundi (21:27) Yes, yeah, so very useful. And then finally, this is all in the same paper. So finally in this paper, Boltzmann related all of this back to the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy is always increasing. And he defined a new mathematical quantity called H, which was related to the velocity distribution of the gases. Jyoti Asundi (21:51) Okay? Aarati Asundi (21:52) And in his H theory, he was able to show that the random collisions of gas molecules made the velocity distribution of the molecules spread out in a predictable way that always increases disorder. So he basically was like, yes, these molecules are always moving towards disorder. Jyoti Asundi (22:13) They are tending towards disorder, are tending towards more chaos. An increase of entropy. Aarati Asundi (22:20) So with this paper, Ludwig essentially introduced the field of statistical mechanics and started to lay the foundation for his next big paper, which we will get to in a minute. Jyoti Asundi (22:32) Okay, okay, he's building blocks. He's using Maxwell's work to build on and define these laws of thermodynamics even better, refine them, and basically add depth and weight to them, validate them in a good way with strong mathematical equations to back up fundamental theories. Aarati Asundi (22:55) Yeah, very, very genius. But let's go back to his life really quickly. So one year after publishing this paper, Ludwig was offered a chair position in the mathematics department at the University of Vienna. Jyoti Asundi (23:11) Okay, so initially he was in which place? Aarati Asundi (23:15) In the University of Graz. Jyoti Asundi (23:17) Graz. And so Vienna is more prestigious probably. Aarati Asundi (23:20) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (23:21) So he's really being recognized for his work with this kind of excellent offers coming his way. Aarati Asundi (23:28) Yes, Vienna gives him more visibility, gives him access to high-ranking colleagues kind of thing, more access to more people in the scientific community. Jyoti Asundi (23:40) There might have been like, you know, centers of learning in those days like Paris and Vienna, Rome and London. These were like the major centers of learning. So yeah, if you can get into that, that's amazing. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (23:52) So he's offered this position as chair in the mathematics department, which was a bit unconventional because Ludwig was technically a physicist, not a mathematician. But the faculty at Vienna justified it by saying that although his work originated in physics, they were also, "Excellent mathematical works containing solutions of very difficult problems of analytical mechanics and especially of probability calculus." Jyoti Asundi (24:21) Yes, so it's really basically he has used applied math because he's applying mathematics to developing the laws of thermodynamics even better. Aarati Asundi (24:32) Yes. But before leaving Graz, it turns out that Ludwig had met a girl. Jyoti Asundi (24:38) Oh nice. Aarati Asundi (24:40) Her name was Henriette von Aigentler. She was 10 years younger than him and she was a teacher. After meeting Ludwig though, she was inspired to study mathematics herself, which he strongly encouraged. However, the Dean at the University of Graz found it bizarre for a woman to want to study math. Jyoti Asundi (25:01) Oh my God. Aarati Asundi (25:02) Yep. So weird. Jyoti Asundi (25:03) Back to our problem of the ages. Aarati Asundi (25:08) Yes, yes. So initially he did give her permission to just sit and listen to the lectures, but soon the university instated a rule that banned women from the university. Jyoti Asundi (25:21) That's horrible. Aarati Asundi (25:22) Yes. But she still, I think, learned enough understand Ludwig's work and, you know, be able to talk with him about it, be able to bounce ideas, off of him and help him along. Jyoti Asundi (25:38) Yes. Aarati Asundi (25:39) So on September 1875, after Ludwig had moved to Vienna, he wrote a letter to Henriette formally proposing to her. In this letter, he wrote that he wasn't a very rich man and he wouldn't have much to offer her in the way of amusements. But he also wrote, "It seems to me that permanent love cannot exist if a wife has no understanding and enthusiasm for her husband's efforts and is just his maid and not the companion who struggles alongside him." Jyoti Asundi (26:11) Wow, he's really looking for a good partnership there. To look for a partner, a true partner, rather than somebody who will take care of his household kind of, it's not that typical patriarchal mode of thinking. Nice. Aarati Asundi (26:26) Mm-hmm. Yes, which I think the dean of the University of Graz was definitely like, why don't you learn to cook? You know, like, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (26:31) Absolutely had. Yes, yes, yes. You go to cooking school this is a math school. Please stay away. Yes. Aarati Asundi (26:38) Yeah, but that's what Ludwig was looking for. He was like, I don't need someone who knows how to cook. I need someone who knows math. Jyoti Asundi (26:43) Correct. That is a very good thought. Nice way of doing it. Aarati Asundi (26:47) And she also loved him very much, calling him her "sweet fat darling" due to his short stout stature. Jyoti Asundi (26:57) Okay. No, but it's interesting that he is telling her that he cannot offer her other amusements. So he's offering her mathematics and the laws of thermodynamics to amuse her. And she's like, yes, I like that. Aarati Asundi (27:12) I like it. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (27:13) I would like that a lot. That's quite good. That's very cute. Aarati Asundi (27:17) Yes. During their engagement, he would ask her opinion about certain professional opportunities that came his way, knowing that whatever he did would also affect her once they were married. Jyoti Asundi (27:28) Oh wow, this is very rare actually because in those days the guy would just take care of his career and the woman is just expected to follow along and do what needs to be done because he's the breadwinner. But recognizes that whatever decision he makes is impacting her life and he's making sure she's okay with it. Aarati Asundi (27:52) And I read also that she was like when he was grappling with whether he should move to a certain ⁓ other opportunity, she was like, hey, you know, you do what you need to do. I'm fine with whatever. But let's go through the pros and cons of each and then you can make the final decision kind of thing. Jyoti Asundi (28:12) She would basically talk him through both sides the equation and then that would help to clarify his thoughts. Aarati Asundi (28:19) Yeah, in a very unbiased way. Jyoti Asundi (28:21) My goodness, a true partner. Aarati Asundi (28:23) Yeah. However, he's in Vienna and she's in Graz still, so they're having this prolonged engagement because it was expensive in Vienna and he was having a really hard time finding a place that he could afford to live with the two of them. There was also lot of administrative work to do at the University of Vienna. Much more than there had been at Graz. And so he was just absolutely swamped. Then in 1876, a friend of his from the University of Graz, August Toepler, who was the chair of general and experimental physics, wrote to Ludwig and told him that he was leaving Graz for new opportunities in Dresden. Jyoti Asundi (29:04) Okay. Aarati Asundi (29:05) And in the letter, to me, it sounded kind of like he was like, hey, I'm leaving and Graz really needs a physicist to come in and take over my position as chair of this department, hint, hint, like come back. Jyoti Asundi (29:18) Hmm. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's right. Here's a here's a vacancy opening up. Come back. Aarati Asundi (29:24) Yes, and Ludwig was like, yeah, I take the hint. And he was like, this makes a lot of sense because not only do I get to be the chair of this department that my friend, Toepler has set up so beautifully with all the latest equipment, everything, you know, it was very... an expensive department that he has set up very nicely. But it also allows me to go back to being a professor of physics, not math, which is more my wheelhouse. Jyoti Asundi (29:50) Yes. Aarati Asundi (29:51) And of course, like we said, Henriette is in Graz, we could get married, you know. Jyoti Asundi (29:55) That's right, yes, multiple reasons to go back to Graz. Aarati Asundi (29:59) Yeah, and Graz has a lower cost of living than Vienna, so we could actually like start a family and yeah... Jyoti Asundi (30:03) Yes, afford to keep a wife at that point. Aarati Asundi (30:06) Yeah. So it was really a no-brainer. Ludwig and Henriette got married in July 1876 and soon started a family together. Henrietta gave birth to two sons, Ludwig Hugo and Arthur. Ludwig Hugo is one name. Arthur is... Jyoti Asundi (30:25) Okay, I was thinking you said three names there, hang on. Yeah, so that's I was confused. Ludwig Hugo is one kid and Arthur is the other kid. Aarati Asundi (30:33) Yeah, because Ludwig Hugo is also named after Ludwig. This is like Ludwig III at least, you know? Jyoti Asundi (30:44) Yeah. At least I was about to say that the father was also Ludwig. He's Ludwig. His son is Ludwig. Don't have to think of too many names. Oof very difficult Aarati Asundi (30:50) Well, to make it more difficult, they also had two daughters, one of which was also named Henriette, and then the other was named Ida. Jyoti Asundi (30:59) ⁓ my goodness! Okay, repeat, repeat, repeat the names. Aarati Asundi (31:04) Yeah. They really liked their own names, they stuck to it. Jyoti Asundi (31:06) Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (31:08) The following years at Gratz were very happy. Ludwig loved taking nature walks and learning about all the plants he saw. And then when his children grew up a bit, he brought them along on the walks and would teach them about all the botany that he had learned. He also bought a farm so that he could live with his family away from the university apartments. My favorite bit is that he got a German Shepherd. Jyoti Asundi (31:35) Ooh, just like us. Aarati Asundi (31:36) Yes, just like us. And the German Shepherd was very smart. He soon learned Ludwig's lunch routine. And so every day at noon, the dog would leave the farm and wait outside the institute for Ludwig to come out. And then he would follow him to the pub where he had lunch and lay at his feet while he was eating. Jyoti Asundi (31:55) That is so cute. Aarati Asundi (31:57) Right? That's like, that's adorable. Jyoti Asundi (31:59) That is really lovely. Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (32:00) Yeah. And I can totally imagine Kyro our dog, doing the same thing. Jyoti Asundi (32:05) Absolutely, if you let him run loose like that, he would definitely come and meet us for lunch somewhere. Aarati Asundi (32:11) Yeah. He's like, I figured out every day that you go from here to here. Jyoti Asundi (32:15) Yes. And then there is food at the end of it. There is food. Aarati Asundi (32:18) Oh I bet he got scraps. Yes, I bet he got scraps. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (32:18) I get scraps. Of course you get table scraps. Yes. Aarati Asundi (32:25) He also got a cow, which funnily enough, even though he was surrounded by farmers, he asked the professor of zoology at Graz how he should milk the cow. Jyoti Asundi (32:35) Okay, yes, so he's going to the highest authority to figure out something that the milkman should be able to tell him. ⁓ Aarati Asundi (32:44) Yes. Which I was like, does a professor of zoology actually know how to milk a cow? Jyoti Asundi (32:49) Yeah, he may not even know how to milk the cow. Funny guy. Aarati Asundi (32:53) And when his daughter wanted a pet monkey but his wife refused, he got her some rabbits instead and kept them for her in his own library at home. Jyoti Asundi (33:03) Oh wow, okay. A cow, rabbits, a German Shepherd, they have quite a menagerie there at home. Yes, Aarati Asundi (33:13) Yeah, yeah, they do. But it was just a beautiful, beautiful, idyllic kind of life that he was building. He loved his children. He loved his family. And he made a lot of time to exercise, go swimming, hang out with colleagues, you know, just a very wonderful life. Jyoti Asundi (33:32) It sounds like he was really able to achieve a nice balance there, which he obviously was not able to do in Vienna. Aarati Asundi (33:41) And because of this, his science also flourished. These years were very fruitful for him. Jyoti Asundi (33:49) Yes, yes, because he's so calming, balanced, he's a happy man. Yeah, so he's able to be at his full productive potential. Aarati Asundi (33:57) Yeah. And so we're getting back into the science again. We're dipping back in. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Aarati Asundi (34:09) Hi everyone, Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S-Y-K-O-M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science, communications, content, including explainer videos, slide presentations, science, writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, nonprofits, or really any scientists. To help simplify your science, check us out at sykommer.com. That's S-Y-K-O-M-M-E-R.com. Back to the story. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Aarati Asundi (34:56) In 1877, he published his second landmark paper called Probabilistic Foundations of Heat Theory which was an extension on his first paper. And he basically, in this paper, blew everyone's minds by saying that entropy was not a mathematical certainty the way Rudolph Clausius had thought about it... Jyoti Asundi (35:21) Okay? Aarati Asundi (35:21) ...but rather a statistical probability. So we're going to break that down. Jyoti Asundi (35:27) Okay. Aarati Asundi (35:28) So we're going back to our box of gas analogy. Jyoti Asundi (35:31) Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (35:33) But this time, suppose in the box you have a partition that separates the left and right sides and all the gas is on the left side and the right side is completely empty. Jyoti Asundi (35:45) Yes. Aarati Asundi (35:46) So the gas molecules are bouncing around on the left side, but then if you remove the partition, what happens? Jyoti Asundi (35:53) They all spread into that full box area. Aarati Asundi (35:57) Yes. And so Rudolf Clausius had essentially said that this is because the system tends to flow towards a more disordered state. And now having more room to bounce around is more disorderly, and so that's what the molecules are going to do. Jyoti Asundi (36:13) They go for it. Yes. Aarati Asundi (36:15) But Ludwig was like, the thing is, that doesn't really explain why this happens. Because if for some reason, all the gas particles stayed on the left side of the box even after you removed the partition, that technically doesn't break any laws of physics. There's no reason why that shouldn't happen. Jyoti Asundi (36:39) Yes. Aarati Asundi (36:40) There's also no reason why the gas molecules shouldn't spread out and then concentrate back into the left side of the box again. Jyoti Asundi (36:49) Got it. Aarati Asundi (36:50) So why do we never see that happen? And Ludwig said, the reason is because of probability and statistics. That yes, the gas could stay in the left side of the box... Jyoti Asundi (37:02) Yes. Aarati Asundi (37:03) ...but what is the probability of that happening when all the molecules are randomly bouncing off of each other? Jyoti Asundi (37:09) Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (37:10) The likelihood that some of the gas molecules would get bumped over into the right side is far more likely than... Jyoti Asundi (37:18) Correct. All of them just sticking to one side. Yes. Aarati Asundi (37:22) Yeah, somehow randomly they bump and they managed to stay in the left side. Jyoti Asundi (37:27) That's right Aarati Asundi (37:28) So the probability that we would ever see all the gas molecules stay on the left side of the box is very, very low. Jyoti Asundi (37:35) Very low, yes. This is exactly like in a crowded bus. There is a whole bunch of people sitting in the bus and the bus is completely full. But then let's pretend for a minute that suddenly half the bus empties out at one of the stops. And so people are going to spread out. They are going to spread into the remaining seats. Nobody is all going to neatly sitting next to each other, strangers sitting tightly next to each other on the same seat two by two by two. They'll be like, hey, that other seat on that other side is completely empty. I'm going to go shift over there and sit by the window. And it's a natural tendency. Aarati Asundi (38:18) Yeah That's a really good analogy because there is no reason why we shouldn't stay all bunched up on the bus, even after half the bus is empty. There's no rule saying that we all have to, we have to spread out. Jyoti Asundi (38:31) Yes, but if you see space you're going to go for it. You're going to be I want to be more comfortable. I want to wiggle around a bit. Aarati Asundi (38:37) Yeah. And the same way, after the gas has spread out, filling the whole container, it's highly unlikely that all the molecules would ever just happen to at the same time bounce their way back into the left side of the box or into one side of the box. Jyoti Asundi (38:53) That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Unless there is some kind of a pressure you put on them and say, no, everybody go this way. They're not going to do it. Aarati Asundi (39:02) Exactly. And that involves putting work or putting energy into the system again to reduce entropy. Jyoti Asundi (39:08) Correct. Aarati Asundi (39:09) So in order to reduce entropy, you have to do some work. Yeah, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (39:13) You have to work. Yes, correct, correct. Yeah, that makes sense. Aarati Asundi (39:18) So this idea that entropy is actually statistical probability rather than a mathematical truth was fundamental to our understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. That yes, entropy in the universe.... Jyoti Asundi (39:31) Yes, yes, it's more likely. Yes, entropy happens because that's the more likely state. It is not like, oh, there's a mathematical equation that drives everything to entropy. is just that it's a more likely state. Aarati Asundi (39:48) And so it's not impossible that you would ever see entropy decreasing. It's just that the chances of it happening are just so minuscule compared all the ways it can increase. Jyoti Asundi (40:00) That's right, Aarati Asundi (40:01) In Boltzmann's interpretation, he came up with two new terms, macrostate and microstate. So macrostate of a system is what we can observe on a large scale. It's temperature, pressure, volume, things like that. The microstate is one possible arrangement of all the molecules in the system that is consistent with that macrostate. Jyoti Asundi (40:28) Okay. Aarati Asundi (40:29) So if you think about a box of gas that's one cubic meter at room temperature at standard pressure, that's the macrostate. Jyoti Asundi (40:38) Okay. Aarati Asundi (40:38) And now if you take a snapshot of all the molecules and what they're doing at a certain time, you have one molecule hanging out over in the corner, one's in the center of the box, one's, you know, down at the bottom and they're all moving at a certain velocity. The one in the corner is moving really fast. The one in the center is moving a bit slower. But it's all consistent with the box in general being at room temperature and pressure. Jyoti Asundi (41:02) Correct. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (41:03) Now, a split second later, the same box, you take another picture. All the molecules have moved because they're all bouncing around. And so the one that was near the corner is now more over to the left or whatever, you know? And it's moving a little bit faster than it was before. But all of this is still consistent with the box being at the same room temperature and standard pressure. Jyoti Asundi (41:26) That's right, that's right, yeah. Aarati Asundi (41:27) And so if you think about it, there's just an overwhelming number of possible microstates that the molecules can exist in. This molecule can be over here, that molecule can be over there, but it's all existing within this box that's room temperature, room pressure, or standard pressure. Jyoti Asundi (41:47) Yeah, for a particular setup there is a series of permutations and combinations in which these molecules can exist. Okay. Aarati Asundi (41:57) Yes, and so given the sheer number of possible microstates that you have, it's very unlikely that you're going to end up with a microstate where all of the molecules are on the left side of the box, Jyoti Asundi (42:15) Yes, correct, correct, correct. Aarati Asundi (42:15) Just compared to how many other microstates there are. Jyoti Asundi (42:19) Yes, yes, yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (42:21) So it's not impossible... Jyoti Asundi (42:23) No, no. Aarati Asundi (42:23) ...but it's just a very low, low probability. Jyoti Asundi (42:27) Yes, maybe one in 10 million. Aarati Asundi (42:31) Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (42:31) Something like that. Yes, one time out of 10 million, they might all be more towards the left rather than.... Aarati Asundi (42:38) Exactly. Ludwig therefore rephrased the idea that "a system tends towards increased entropy" to "a system tends towards the configuration that has the most possible number of microstates". Jyoti Asundi (42:53) Hmm hmm hmm. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Got it. They want maximum um... Aarati Asundi (43:02) Freedom! Jyoti Asundi (43:02) ...chaos to be possible. Aarati Asundi (43:05) Yeah. We want maximum room. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (43:05) Yes, want to sit here and I want to sit here. Yes. Aarati Asundi (43:09) We want to bounce around. We want maximum freedom. We want to do whatever we want. Yeah. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (43:09) Got it. Maximum freedom. Yes, freedom is the fundamental force driving these molecules and I want to be in the position where I have all my options open. Aarati Asundi (43:24) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (43:24) This is so similar to how human beings think, actually. Aarati Asundi (43:30) It is. Jyoti Asundi (43:30) And these are inanimate molecules. Because even a human being, this is what we always talk about. Aarati Asundi (43:36) Yeah, we want freedom. We want... Jyoti Asundi (43:37) We want freedom. We want to keep our choices open. If there is a situation where we have multiple options open, we'll go with that option. Aarati Asundi (43:46) Yes, so these molecules behaving the same way. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (43:49) They're doing the same thing. That's funny. Aarati Asundi (43:54) Mathematically, this is written as S, which is entropy, equals K which is constant, times log W, where W is the number of microstates. So this is one of his famous equations, S equals K times the log of W. Jyoti Asundi (44:12) Okay. Aarati Asundi (44:13) His reputation as a scientist grew very quickly and he became known as one of the greatest physicists of his time. Throughout the 1880s, Ludwig published several more papers on statistical mechanics and kinetic theory, and he even dabbled a bit in electromagnetic waves and light, again following kind of the footsteps of James Maxwell, because Maxwell was known for his equations in electromagnetism. However, now the story starts to take a bit of a turn for the worse. Jyoti Asundi (44:44) Oh! Aarati Asundi (44:46) So first in 1885, his mother died which was a devastating loss because remember he had lost his father at only 15. And so because of that, he and his mother had become very close. Jyoti Asundi (45:00) Yes, and now with the death of his mother, he's only left with one sister, Hedwig. Aarati Asundi (45:08) Yep. And I don't actually know what their relationship was like. Jyoti Asundi (45:12) Yeah, maybe she was married and went away and then busy with her own family. Aarati Asundi (45:18) Yeah. After that, his personality seemed to change somewhat. So yeah, remember we were talking about how, you know, he was born between Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday... Jyoti Asundi (45:31) That's right, and therefore he had big mood swings. Aarati Asundi (45:35) Yeah, and so now those big mood swings really started to come through. So up until this point, his family and friends and colleagues had really just seen him as this very happy, humorous, caring guy. He living a really good life. Jyoti Asundi (45:51) The positivity outweighed the negativity for him. And so he was able to balance things and be more optimistic overall. But now... Aarati Asundi (45:59) Yeah, things were going well for him. And he was a fantastic teacher. He was very inspiring to his students, which included the likes of Lisa Meitner, who discovered nuclear fission, and Svante Arrhenius, who discovered that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas. So some big names were his students. Jyoti Asundi (46:20) Hmm, big names. Aarati Asundi (46:22) And he was very entertaining to his friends and family, always socializing, playing the piano, going on nature walks, all of this stuff. And of course he, you know, was achieving great success scientifically. But that in itself started to cause a problem because he started to get this feeling that he was a genius and he was dissatisfied with his place at the University of Graz. He was like... Jyoti Asundi (46:48) Oh, "I'm born for better things". He was a big fish in a small pond. He wanted to be a big fish in a big pond. Aarati Asundi (46:57) Yeah, but then he would turn around again and then he would have these moments of indecision where it was almost like imposter syndrome. Like, you know, maybe I actually am not as great and I'm just fooling everybody, you know? So he's kind of swinging between these two... Jyoti Asundi (47:10) Huh, yes, because why are great things not coming my way? The rest of the world doesn't see me as being as brilliant as I think of myself. Aarati Asundi (47:20) Or even like, you know, he was offered a bigger position at the University of Berlin, for example. And initially he was really excited and he was like, my gosh, yes, this is like University of Berlin is so much better than the University of Graz. I would be able to, you know, be a big, big shot in a big ocean over there. But then ultimately he turned it down saying, quote, "My conscience would not permit me to start a new job in this position of high responsibility without complete experience in the whole area for which I have been appointed." End quote. Jyoti Asundi (47:56) Oh wow. Aarati Asundi (47:56) So he's basically like, I'm not good enough. Jyoti Asundi (47:58) Oh my goodness, okay, that's big mood swings there, yeah, okay. Aarati Asundi (48:03) Yeah. He's teetering on indecision constantly. Jyoti Asundi (48:07) Hmm. Yes. Aarati Asundi (48:08) But this attitude that he sometimes got, that he deserved to be in a better position, started to get to his colleagues and that obviously started to cause a lot of friction. Jyoti Asundi (48:19) Yeah, he probably became very abrasive because of that. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (48:23) Yeah, I think he definitely had his moments where he was like, you guys are all stupid, you know, and then even in his moments where he was like, ⁓ you know, maybe I'm the stupid one. People remember that people were like yesterday, you said I was the stupid one and I haven't forgotten that, you know. Jyoti Asundi (48:38) Yes, correct, correct, correct, correct. Yes. Aarati Asundi (48:41) So yeah, he started to make some enemies among his own colleagues. Then in 1889, Ludwig lost his first son, Ludwig Hugo, to appendicitis. Jyoti Asundi (48:55) Oh! Aarati Asundi (48:56) So another big, you know, emotional devastating blow. Jyoti Asundi (48:59) Big hit. Yeah, and I think the first son who was named after him, that would have been a special bond most likely. Aarati Asundi (49:09) Yeah. And so now for him, it felt like Graz had become this horrible place where his mother had died, his son has died. He's not appreciated for his genius. His colleagues hate him. Jyoti Asundi (49:23) Yes. Aarati Asundi (49:23) And so he starts to vocally regret his decision to not go to the University of Berlin and made it known to everyone that he was indeed looking for a way to leave Graz. Hearing about this, a professor of experimental physics at the University of Munich saw the opportunity and was like, "Hey, we could get the Ludwig Boltzmann to come to our university. We could get him to come here. He wants to leave." Jyoti Asundi (49:50) Yes, yes, get him, yeah. Aarati Asundi (49:55) Yeah, because he's still like this obviously well-regarded figure by the scientific community at large. Jyoti Asundi (49:59) Of course, absolutely. Aarati Asundi (50:03) So he's offered a position of chair of theoretical physics. And he was- Ludwig was off immediately. He couldn't wait to go. And for the next few years, he's relatively happy again. He throws himself into teaching. He enjoys going out for beers once a week with his colleagues and discussing math. Jyoti Asundi (50:21) And he's away from the place he lost his mom and all those memories. So that definitely would help him. Aarati Asundi (50:29) Yeah. But by 1892, he started to get homesick and miss Austria. Jyoti Asundi (50:35) Oh! This is so hard. Aarati Asundi (50:38) Yeah, so he's constantly now going back and forth between what he wants. He's not sure about what he wants. That year, his very first mentor, Joseph Stefan, at the University of Vienna passed away. And his colleagues in Vienna started trying to persuade Ludwig to come to the university and fill that now vacant seat. Jyoti Asundi (51:02) But Vienna was the place where he didn't have enough money. Aarati Asundi (51:06) Yes, but now maybe because he's like a bit of a bigger shot, he would hopefully get something. Jyoti Asundi (51:13) Yeah, get a bit more. Yeah, get a livable wage basically. Aarati Asundi (51:16) Yeah. Yeah. So he was very like drawn to that. He was like, I could go back to Vienna, to Austria. The University of Munich managed to hang on to him for a bit longer by increasing his salary and giving him an assistant. But in 1894, he accepted the position in Vienna and he went back to Austria. The position came with a huge salary increase and pension. Jyoti Asundi (51:39) Hmm. this time they're going to give him money. Aarati Asundi (51:43) Yes. And then the fact that his colleagues in Vienna had fought so hard for him to come back to Vienna gave him a big ego boost. He was like, yeah, they're all fighting for me. Jyoti Asundi (51:53) Yes. Yeah. Everybody loves me. Yes. Yes. Aarati Asundi (51:57) Yeah, so he's back on this big high. Jyoti Asundi (51:59) Excellent. Aarati Asundi (52:01) But within months that euphoria wore off, he didn't find as many friends as he had in Munich. And in fact, some of the colleagues that he had in Vienna were openly hostile towards him. There was one scientist in particular, Ernest Mach, who was a professor of philosophy and history of science, who didn't believe in atoms. And so he completely rejected all of Ludwig's work because all of his work is based on the fact that gas is made up of atoms. But despite that, think Ludwig was like, well, in the spirit of friendly scientific discussion, I should set this guy right. I should debate him. I should prove him wrong. I should show him why atomic theory is correct and lay out all the evidence. And so he would get drawn into these very heated arguments with Ernest Mach who was not budging, you know? Jyoti Asundi (52:58) Okay. Aarati Asundi (52:58) And Ernest Mach wasn't the only one. There were quite a few scientists who didn't believe in atomic theory and therefore didn't believe in Ludwig's life work. Jyoti Asundi (53:09) Okay. Aarati Asundi (53:09) And so all of these arguments on the topic were very draining to him. He was like, scientists should be working together in the spirit of teamwork and I'm all for an open discussion, I'm all for debate, but this constant like rejection of his theories made him feel very underappreciated and isolated in a way that he hadn't felt in Munich or Graz or any of these other places. And he even said he found the students that he taught less interested in learning than the ones in Munich had been. So even that teaching wasn't giving him joy anymore. Jyoti Asundi (53:46) Yeah, basically life is not offering any joy to him at this point. Yeah that is definitely from his own mindset because students are students everywhere. So if he's feeling the students are not as engaged, it's most likely because of himself and his negative attitude. Aarati Asundi (54:07) Most likely. sure that seep through into his lectures and that kind of depression came through. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (54:13) Yeah, yeah. Aarati Asundi (54:14) In 1900, he accepted a position as a professor of theoretical physics in Leipzig, but he found it to be even worse than Vienna. Here, he even made an attempt at suicide. Jyoti Asundi (54:26) Oh no. Aarati Asundi (54:27) When his colleagues asked him why he was so unhappy, he wasn't able to give them a clear answer. But he felt like he was in constant battle to prove his work and people aren't believing him. They're not recognizing his genius again, you know, and they're just constantly fighting with him. And all he actually really wanted to do is put his energies towards moving science forward but he was just mired in all of these arguments. Jyoti Asundi (54:52) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (54:53) In 1902, Ludwig went back to Vienna, but his huge mood swings and sometimes odd behavior was starting rumors that he was mentally ill. So today, psychologists think that he probably had some form of bipolar disorder. Jyoti Asundi (55:09) Yeah, manic depression. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (55:12) Yeah, something like that. But of course, they didn't know that at this time. Jyoti Asundi (55:17) Very sad. Aarati Asundi (55:18) And then in addition to all of this, his sight was beginning to deteriorate. And he was having frequent asthma attacks. Jyoti Asundi (55:26) Oh no, okay, so he's losing on every front. He's losing his health, he's losing his family, his brain is completely under attack by his own emotions. And so he's not able to logically calmly map his life out. He's coming under mood swings. Oh very sad. Aarati Asundi (55:46) Yes. In May 1906, the Dean of Philosophical Faculty of the Imperial Royal University on Vienna wrote a letter in which he described Ludwig Boltzmann as suffering from neurasthenia, which back then was a term for nervous exhaustion due to stress, and recommended that he stop doing scientific work. Jyoti Asundi (56:10) Oh goodness! That's another big blow. Okay. You're too sick. Go away and get better. You can't do science. Very sad. Aarati Asundi (56:19) Yes. He didn't stop, though, really. Jyoti Asundi (56:23) Of course not. Aarati Asundi (56:23) He continued to lecture and continued travel and go to conferences and things like that. Tragically, on September 5, 1906, while vacationing in Trieste, Italy with his wife and daughter, Ludwig took his own life in their hotel room while his wife and daughter were out swimming. Jyoti Asundi (56:44) Oh no, oh no, very sad. Oh my goodness. He succumbed to his, most likely bipolar because that's when he's just, he just... Oh, I'm so sad for his wife and daughter who would have come back and seen him like that. That's horrible. Aarati Asundi (57:01) Mm hmm. Yeah, it was it was really bad. And I'm not going to go into the details of it. We're just going to stop there. But there's a lot stories about Boltzmann and his especially his later life and all of moments of euphoria and humor and then suddenly swinging into this like anxiety and depression and then back to this like euphoric giddiness, you know, and so it's, it's very, very difficult to read about that and see how much he was struggling. Jyoti Asundi (57:34) Yeah. This is most likely some kind, today I'm sure he could have had some, got some drugs that would have helped him ⁓ equalize himself a bit better. Aarati Asundi (57:44) Yeah. His death was a huge shock to everyone he knew, as in fact, he was due to lecture in Vienna the very next day. So... Jyoti Asundi (57:54) Oh no. Okay. Aarati Asundi (57:55) ...no one expected this. He was buried in Vienna's central cemetery, which also happens to be the resting place of Beethoven. Jyoti Asundi (58:05) Oh! His childhood hero of music. Aarati Asundi (58:08) Yeah, his favorite composer. I was looking up actually the Vienna Central Cemetery. There's some big names interred there. Jyoti Asundi (58:18) Hopefully he's able to rest in peace right next to his hero. Aarati Asundi (58:22) Yeah, and among all these other geniuses as well, he's got a place of honor there in that cemetery. Jyoti Asundi (58:24) Yes, very sad. Yes. Aarati Asundi (58:30) In the 1930s, his grave was renovated to include a marble bust of him and an inscription of his equation S equals K log W. Jyoti Asundi (58:40) Ah! Okay, for posterity, yeah. Aarati Asundi (58:45) And this equation is still widely used today to help model hypersonic flows around space shuttles as they re-enter the atmosphere and ion transport in semiconductors. Jyoti Asundi (58:57) Big implications. Aarati Asundi (58:59) Yes. And then the one more kind of... note that I want to add at the end of this is that while I was researching the story, I came across this interesting trippy kind of thought experiment that if you have the brain cells left for it, we're going to squeeze them dry with this one. Jyoti Asundi (59:21) Okay. Aarati Asundi (59:23) It's called the Boltzmann Brain Paradox. Jyoti Asundi (59:26) Oh okay! Aarati Asundi (59:27) So basically Ludwig had been asked, given his theory of probability and things moving towards entropy and disorder, people had asked him, if things are always moving towards disorder, how is it possible that our universe, the way it is, could exist right now? Because all things considered, we have a very structured universe. Jyoti Asundi (59:53) Yes. Aarati Asundi (59:53) We have planets. We have life. Jyoti Asundi (59:56) Everything is in its orbit. Yes. Aarati Asundi (59:57) Yeah. We have this society. We have human consciousness. That shouldn't happen. It should all just be atmospheric dust, all scattered about the universe. But we have things happening here. How is that possible that we're all just not free-floating atoms? How did these atoms actually come together to create our world and create life and planets and all of this kind of thing? It's kind of weird that the world is not more chaotic and disordered than it is. Jyoti Asundi (1:00:29) Correct. Aarati Asundi (1:00:29) And that is supposed to be the more likely state. So how come we have all this structure? Jyoti Asundi (1:00:32) Yes. How come we have some orders still left? Shocking. Aarati Asundi (1:00:36) Yeah. So Ludwig proposed that if the universe was infinite, then over an infinite period of time, highly unlikely things would happen. Jyoti Asundi (1:00:50) That's true. Yes. Aarati Asundi (1:00:51) It's a one in a trillion billion chance, but it's gonna happen. Jyoti Asundi (1:00:55) But that turn will come. The turn for that one in trillion chance will come. Got it. Aarati Asundi (1:01:01) And so our universe forming out of a random mess of particles is that one in a trillion chance that, you know, it just happened that we rolled the lucky die and it happened. Jyoti Asundi (1:01:14) Yes. Aarati Asundi (1:01:15) But Ludwig had an assistant named Ignas Schutz, who thought about this and said, you know what, it's far more likely that instead of all of these particles coming together to form an entire universe, it's more likely that just enough particles have come together to form a human brain... Jyoti Asundi (1:01:38) Oh my goodness! Aarati Asundi (1:01:38) ...which contains a false lifetime of experience. Jyoti Asundi (1:01:44) Oh wow, this is so amazing because this is what is at the core of Vedanta and Hinduism. Oh my goodness. Aarati Asundi (1:01:54) Oh really? Jyoti Asundi (1:01:55) Yeah. OH my God. That it's- that the entire world exists in your mind. That's what they say. The universe does not exist. The universe is a set of experiences in your mind. It only exists within you. And you know, we have all these, the creator and the destructor and everything and it's all your brain that's the creator, the sustainer and the destructor and they are all your thoughts chasing one another. Oh my God! Aarati Asundi (1:02:23) Yeah. So he was like none this really exists, you know? Like, it's less likely that all the particles that form me and my brother and my dog and my house and this world, you know, and this planet, that all these particles came together is much more unlikely than just enough particles came together to form a brain that is experiencing me and my dog and my house and my world, you know? Jyoti Asundi (1:02:54) That's right. Yes, Amazing. Amazing. Aarati Asundi (1:02:59) So this became kind of a paradox, that which one actually happened? Is our universe even real or is it all just existing in the brain? In 1970s and 80s, cosmetologists coined the term the Boltzmann Brain Paradox after this discussion. And so I thought that was just a really interesting way to end the episode and say goodbye to 2025. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (1:03:26) This is amazing. This is truly an amazing episode. And I'm just so happy I was able to journey with you on this whole trilogy on thermodynamics basically. Aarati Asundi (1:03:39) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (1:03:39) And to end with this really high note about how the entire universe exists only in your own mind. Aarati Asundi (1:03:46) I think this is why mathematicians and physicists really love what they do because they're like, connects to everything. It connects to music. It connects to spirituality. It connects to biology. They're like physics and math is the ultimate language of the universe. It is how we understand everything. Jyoti Asundi (1:04:04) Absolutely. Yes. This is super cool. Aarati Asundi (1:04:05) And I'm like, it makes a lot of sense. Jyoti Asundi (1:04:09) Wow. Wow. This is neat. So neat. Thank you for sharing. This is amazing stories. Aarati Asundi (1:04:16) Well, there's a lot like there's a lot of other people who I did not devote a full episode to like James Maxwell is obviously, you know, played a big role. Jyoti Asundi (1:04:23) Mm-hmm. Yes, his name kept coming up. Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (1:04:27) James Prescott Joule. Gibbs. That's another one. And I'm like, OK. Jyoti Asundi (1:04:32) They probably just deserve their own stories. Aarati Asundi (1:04:34) Oh yeah, I'm like, I'm going to have to revisit this. I was like, you know, Jyoti Asundi (1:04:38) Yes absolutely. Aarati Asundi (1:04:40) Arun was saying, you should just keep going but I'm like, okay, we're going to give it a little bit of a break and then I'll definitely come back and do those people at some point. Jyoti Asundi (1:04:49) No, this was excellent. Thank you for sharing. This was lovely. I enjoyed myself a lot. Aarati Asundi (1:04:53) Yeah, yes, thank you to Arun for our suggestion, and looking forward to doing more episodes next year. Jyoti Asundi (1:05:00) Yes, absolutely. Take care. Aarati Asundi (1:05:04) Thanks for listening. If you have a suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smartteapodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @smartteapodcast and listen to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And leave us a rating or comment. It helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time.