Statistical postulate

In its conservative estimate, the German Federal Bureau of Statistics postulates 600,000 victims cf. D. Irving, Und Deutschlands Stadte starben nicht, Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1989, p. 373 cf. M. Czesany, Europa im Bombenk-... 

There are certain relationships between the critical indices and the similarity parameters that are deduced from common thermodynamic or statistical postulates and from the homogeneity property of the thermodynamic potentials. Therefore, they are valid for any specific system. 

It is apparent that in the case of a microcanonical ensemble each quantum state i has, according to the aforementioned statistical postulate, the same probability ... 

According to the statistical postulate, the probability of q.s. i with energy , is a function of this energy only ... 

An alternative way of deriving the BET equation is to express the problem in statistical-mechanical rather than kinetic terms. Adsorption is explicitly assumed to be localized the surface is regarded as an array of identical adsorption sites, and each of these sites is assumed to form the base of a stack of sites extending out from the surface each stack is treated as a separate system, i.e. the occupancy of any site is independent of the occupancy of sites in neighbouring stacks—a condition which corresponds to the neglect of lateral interactions in the BET model. The further postulate that in any stack the site in the ith layer can be occupied only if all the underlying sites are already occupied, corresponds to the BET picture in which condensation of molecules to form the ith layer can only take place on to molecules which are present in the (i — l)th layer. 

The parameters Ci, t2 were postulated to be dependent only upon the substrate, and d, d2, upon the solvent. A large body of kinetic data, embodying many structural types and leaving groups, was subjected to a statistical analysis. In order to achieve a unique solution, these arbitrary conditions were imposed cj = 3.0 C2 for MeBr Cl = C2 = 1.0 for f-BuCl 3.0 Ci = C2 for PhsCF. Some remarkably successful correlations [calculated vs. experimental log (fc/fco)l were achieved, but the approach appeared to lack physical significance and was not much used. Many years later Peterson et al. - showed a correspondence between Eqs. (8-69) and (8-74) in particular, the very simple result di + d, = T was found. 

The earliest hint that physics and information might be more than just casually related actually dates back at least as far as 1871 and the publication of James Clerk Maxwell s Theory of Heat, in which Maxwell introduced what has become known as the paradox of Maxwell s Demon. Maxwell postulated the existence of a hypothetical demon that positions himself by a hole separating two vessels, say A and B. While the vessels start out being at the same temperature, the demon selectively opens the hole only to either pass faster molecules from A to B or to pass slower molecules from B to A. Since this results in a systematic increase in B s temperature and a lowering of A s, it appears as though Maxwell s demon s actions violate the second law of thermodynamics the total entropy of any physical system can only increase, or, for totally reversible processes, remain the same it can never decrease. Maxwell was thus the first to recognize a connection between the thermodynamical properties of a gas (temperature, entropy, etc.) and the statistical properties of its constituent molecules. 

There are three different approaches to a thermodynamic theory of continuum that can be distinguished. These approaches differ from each other by the fundamental postulates on which the theory is based. All of them are characterized by the same fundamental requirement that the results should be obtained without having recourse to statistical or kinetic theories. None of these approaches is concerned with the atomic structure of the material. Therefore, they represent a pure phenomenological approach. The principal postulates of the first approach, usually called the classical thermodynamics of irreversible processes, are documented. The principle of local state is assumed to be valid. The equation of entropy balance is assumed to involve a term expressing the entropy production which can be represented as a sum of products of fluxes and forces. This term is zero for a state of equilibrium and positive for an irreversible process. The fluxes are function of forces, not necessarily linear. However, the reciprocity relations concern only coefficients of the linear terms of the series expansions. Using methods of this approach, a thermodynamic description of elastic, rheologic and plastic materials was obtained. 

Available kinetic data are seldom of sufficiently high quality to warrant the application of high precision statistical treatment. This point is made forcefully by Churchill [495] who states Our ability and inclination to postulate and construct models appear to exceed our ability and inclination to obtain good rate data. Improvement in rate correlations will come primarily from more and better measurements rather than from improvements in modelling or mathematical procedures. ... 

These new statistical procedures permit reexamination of a number of reaction series to reach more definite conclusions than formerly concerning the occurrence, accuracy, and significance of isokinetic relationships and possible values of the isokinetic temperatures. In this section, the consequences of these findings will be discussed and confronted with theoretical postulates or predictions. 

Chapters 7 and 8 discuss spin and identical particles, respectively, and each chapter introduces an additional postulate. The treatment in Chapter 7 is limited to spin one-half particles, since these are the particles of interest to chemists. Chapter 8 provides the link between quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. To emphasize that link, the ffee-electron gas and Bose-Einstein condensation are discussed. Chapter 9 presents two approximation procedures, the variation method and perturbation theory, while Chapter 10 treats molecular structure and nuclear motion. 

Various statistical treatments of reaction kinetics provide a physical picture for the underlying molecular basis for Arrhenius temperature dependence. One of the most common approaches is Eyring transition state theory, which postulates a thermal equilibrium between reactants and the transition state. Applying statistical mechanical methods to this equilibrium and to the inherent rate of activated molecules transiting the barrier leads to the Eyring equation (Eq. 10.3), where k is the Boltzmann constant, h is the Planck s constant, and AG is the relative free energy of the transition state [note Eq. (10.3) ignores a transmission factor, which is normally 1, in the preexponential term]. 

The existence of active sites on surfaces has long been postulated, but confidence in the geometric models of kink and step sites has only been attained in recent years by work on high index surfaces. However, even a lattice structure that is unreconstructed will show a number of random defects, such as vacancies and isolated adatoms, purely as a result of statistical considerations. What has been revealed by the modern techniques described in chapter 2 is the extraordinary mobility of surfaces, particularly at the liquid-solid interface. If the metal atoms can be stabilised by coordination, very remarkable atom mobilities across the terraces are found, with reconstruction on Au(100), for example, taking only minutes to complete at room temperature in chloride-containing electrolytes. It is now clear that the... 

An RTD curve, for instance, can be represented in algebraic form in more than one way and for different purposes. The characteristic bell shape of many RTDs is evident in the real examples of Figure 5.4. Such shapes invite comparison with some well-known statistical distributions and representation of the RTD by their equations. Or a realistic mechanism may be postulated, such as a network of reactor elements and a type of flow pattern, and the parameters of that mechanism evaluated from a measured RTD. 

Eq. (14), which was originally postulated by Zimmerman and Brittin (1957), assumes fast exchange between all hydration states (i) and neglects the complexities of cross-relaxation and proton exchange. Equation (15) is consistent with the Ergodic theorem of statistical thermodynamics, which states that at equilibrium, a time-averaged property of an individual water molecule, as it diffuses between different states in a system, is equal to a... 

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