Ludwig Boltzman

Ludwig Boltzman ( LB) was born , on Feb.20, 1824) in Vienna ( Austria).His life alternated between Happy periods and periods of depression. It ended on Sept 5, 1906 .His research started with Kinetic theory of gases (KT) and proceded to Statistical Mechanics (SM) and finally ended in Thermodynamics ( TD) .He coined the word ‘Ergodic ‘ meaning ‘Mean" . My father ,Prof Kandula Nagabhushanam who was a professor of statistics proposed a few Ergodic theorems
His main contribution of great importance was " one could connect the microscopic behaviour of of atoms and molecules with macroscopic behavior of substances. " .He established this using mathematics. One of such macroscopic behaviours is ‘Temperature ‘ ( one may read ‘Hacking Matter’ by Wil McCarthy ) .
He got his Ph.D in 1866 for his contributions to KT .He became of professor at Garz in 1869. His friends were KIrchoff ( Famous for his laws in Electricity ) and Helmholtz ( famous for his contribution to vortex motion in fluids)
In1873 he joined Vienna university .Then he moved to other places including Munich He could never stick to one place.
In 1894 he moved back to Vienna to occupy his guide’s chair which fell vacant. Here his troubles started with E Mach ( EM) joinig the same university one year later. Mach worked on shock waves and his number E= 1 demarcates subsonic and supersonic flows. EM criticised Boltzman’s work for the wrong conclusions it led to in Thermodynamics .So LB moved to Leipizig( Lz) in 1900 .
At LZ he had to face a bigger critic Wilhelm Ostwald ( WO) . According a person who attended the senminar at which a big fight which he said resembled a bull fight ,took place between LB and WO .He said all the younger group of which he was a member supported LB and the bull won that time !
In1901 Mach retired due to ill health and LB returned to Vienna .
He was continuously attacked by peers and also received support from admirers . So his moods were swinging . He finally committed suicide on Sept 5, 1906 just before his famous ideas on SM got Sustantiated by Experiments !
When he won it was not because he was right and when he lost it was not because he was wrong . While issues are being settled the fortunes swing .