· ... Philosophy gets on my nerves. If we analyse the ultimate ground of everything, then everything finally falls into nothingness. But I have decid… - Ludwig Boltzmann

[W]e will consider the , rather than the velocity of the molecules. Each molecule can have only a finite number of values for its kinetic energy. As a further simplification, we assume that the kinetic energies of each molecule form an ...<math>0,\epsilon,2\epsilon,2\epsilon,...p\epsilon</math>We call <math>P</math> the largest possible value of the kinetic energy, <math>p\epsilon</math>. ...after the collision, each molecule still has one of the above values of kinetic energy.

When Lord Salisbury says that nature is a mystery, he means... that this simple conception of Boscovich is refuted almost in every branch of science, the Theory of Gases not excepted. The assumption that the molecules are aggregates of material points, in the sense of Boscovich, does not agree with the facts. But what else are they? And what is the ether through which they move? Let us again hear Lord Salisbury. He says<blockquote>"What the atom of each element is, whether it is a movement, or a thing, or a vortex, or a point having inertia, all these questions are surrounded by profound darkness. I dare not use any less pedantic word than entity to designate the ether, for it would be a great exaggeration of our knowledge if I were to speak of it as a body, or even as a substance."</blockquote>

The unknown electric action accompanying a chemical process augments these transverse vibrations enormously. The generalised coordinates of the ether, on which these vibrations depend, have not the same vis viva as the coordinates which determine the position of a molecule, because the entire ether has not had time to come into with the gas molecules, and has in no respect attained the state which it would have if it were enclosed for an infinitely long time in the same vessel with the molecules of the gas.