The only thing I knew about Ehrenfest came from a morose quote that opened a book I read last year: > Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying sta

The only thing I knew about Ehrenfest came from a morose quote that opened a book I read last year: > Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics.