Overview: Presents the forgotten mechanical approach of Boltzmann in a pedagogical, original, and organic manner.Avoids unnecessary mathematical abstraction and complications.Includes complements and exercises This brief provides a modern pedagogical exposition of the mechanical approach to statistical mechanics initiated by Boltzmann with his early works (1866-1871). Despite the later contribution by Helmholtz, Boltzmann himself (1884-1887), Gibbs, P. Hertz, and Einstein, the mechanical approach remained almost unknown to the modern reader, in favour of the celebrated combinatorial approach,
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