Varun Immanuel

Freelance Researcher

The epistemic reality of macrostates


September 28, 2023

In the mechanistic picture of Boltzmann, macro-states are a subjective feature witnessed by agents studying a thermodynamic system with incomplete knowledge.  A thermodynamic system is really in a (unknown) micro-state at any given time. In the mechanistic picture, a box of gas molecules has in reality only the position and momenta of the constituent molecules. Temperature is a statistical, and thus subjective feature.