Matter classical ideas about

STATISTICAL MECHANICS. One major problem of physios involves the prediction of the macroscopic properties of matter in terms of the properties of the molecules of which it is composed. According to the ideas of classical physics, this could have been accomplished by a determination of the detailed motion of each molecule and by a subsequent superposition or summation of their effects. The Heisenberg indeterminacy principle now indicates that this process is impossible, since we cannot acquire sufficient information about the initial state of the molecules. Even if this were not so, the problem would be practically insoluble because of the extremely large numbers of molecules involved in nearly all observations. Many successful predictions can be made, however, by considering only the average, or most probable, behavior of the molecules, rather than the behavior of individuals. This is the mediod used in statistical mechanics. 

Up to now, we have summarized quite a number of seemingly bizarre results. However, all of these results can be understood by accepting the idea of wave-particle duality, which may not be predicted from classical physics, but is not intrinsically inconsistent with it. It could be argued that now we simply know more about the nature of matter and light thus the concepts of waves and particles, previously thought to be so different, simply have to be extended to a middle ground. 

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