Boltzmann's atom : the great debate that launched a revolution in physics / David Lindley.

New York ; London : Free Press, [2001], ©2001.

xi, 260 pages ; 23 cm

A letter from Bombay ; Lessons in obscurity -- Invisible world ; The kind of motion we call heat -- Dr. Boltzmann of Vienna ; The precocious genius -- Irreversible changes ; The enigma of entropy -- "You will not fit in" ; The daunting Prussians -- The British engagement ; Parsons, lawyers, and physicists -- "It's easy to mistake a great stupidity for a great discovery" ; Philosophy seduces physics -- American innovations ; New world, new ideas -- The shock of the new ; The arrival of the atomic century -- Beethoven in heaven ; Shadows of the mind -- Annus mirablis, annus mortis ; Einstein rises, and a man falls.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-251) and index.