Boltzmann’s goal in thinking this way was to provide a basis in atomic theory for the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the statement that the entropy will always increase (or stay constant) in a closed system. The Second Law had already been formulated by Clausius and others, but Boltzmann wanted to derive it from some simple set of underlying principles. You can see how this statistical thinking leads us in the right direction—“systems tend to evolve from uncommon arrangements into common ones” bears a family resemblance to “systems tend to evolve from low-entropy configurations into
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