Kuehn, Reimer and Lavis, David and Frigg, Roman (2021) Becoming Large, Becoming Infinite: The Anatomy of Thermal Physics and Phase Transitions in Finite Systems. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the anatomy of both thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, together with the relationships between their constituent parts. Based on this analysis, using the renormalization group and finite-size scaling, we give a definition of a large but finite system and argue that phase transitions are represented correctly, as incipient singularities in such systems. We describe the role of the thermodynamic limit. And we explore the implications of this picture of critical phenomena for the questions of reduction and emergence.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Kuehn, Reimer reimer.kuehn@kcl.ac.uk 0000-0001-8030-1951 Lavis, David david.lavis@kcl.ac.uk 0000-0002-8812-3851 Frigg, Roman r.p.frigg@lse.ac.uk 0000-0003-0812-0907
Keywords:	scaling, renormalization, large systems, incipient singularities, reduction, emergence
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Depositing User:	David Lavis
Date Deposited:	29 Jun 2021 21:46
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2021 21:46
Item ID:	19255
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Date:	14 June 2021
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19255

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