Ludwig Boltzmann: The Genius of Disorder

The 19th-century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann stirred up controversy by proposing that scientists could make intelligent guesses about the behavior of atoms, which, though they moved randomly, could be described by certain probabilistic generalizations. His suggestion to explain thermodynamics by using statistical methods went against the long-standing trend of assuming absolute fixed laws. These were profound and disturbing changes.

The movie is about the engaging story of science and personal struggle of Ludwig Boltzmann, set against the intellectual climate of nineteenth-century Vienna, and shows how science has come to accept the reality of the invisible world.

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Statistical Mechanics

Dangerous Knowledge

Dangerous Knowledge is a BBC documentary presented by David Malone, looking at four brilliant mathematicians - Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Godel and Alan Turing - whose genius has profoundly affected us, but which tragically drove them insane and eventually led to them all committing suicide. The film begins with Georg Cantor, the great mathematician whose work proved to be the foundation for much of the 20th-century mathematics. Cantor believed he was God's messenger and was eventually driven insane trying to prove his theories of infinity. Ludwig Boltzmann's struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Kurt Godel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death. Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.

Dangerous Knowledge (Part 1/2)

Dangerous Knowledge (Part 2/2)