1050 



Yet, in the establishing of physical laws and in applying them, 

 every physicist practically behaves as if he were perfectly con- 

 vinced of all macroscopic processes being determined by the 

 macroscopic coordinates alone, 



Now we may ask: this intuitive way of thinking, which always 

 proved to be very fruitful, is it in incompatible antagonism with the 

 kinetical conception — which on the other hand has also proved 

 to be useful — or may a closer investigation prove these two 

 conceptions to be reconcilable? 



The following short discussion may indicate the way in which 

 such a reconciliation between the two conceptions may be approached. 



§ 2. The following has only to be remarked. We have never 

 contented ourselves with describing the state of the world macros- 

 copically for one single moment. On the contrary, we have been 

 studying it since a very long time by means of many conscious 

 and still more unconsious observations and the laws we establish 

 must agree with all those observations. 



Applied to our gas this runs as follows: Principally it is always 



possible to consider the values M^\ MJ Af,J of the macroscopic 



quantities M^, M, Mm at a moment U as functions of the 6 TV 



unknown values .i\\ a',° .i'V.a of the microscopic coordinates at 



the moment t^ and of the moment ti 



3// = r^., (..•/, .f^», ... .. .rVv;^) . 



.... (A) 



M,n' = ffm (^1% ^,°, ^ 6.V; t,) 



However small the number m of the observable quantities may be 

 compared with the number 6 iV, by an increase of the number of 

 moments of observation the number of equations A may be made 

 to approach the number necessary for a perfect definiteness of the 

 quantities .r/, ^"e.v- 



But then the values of Mn aie also determined for all moments, so 

 that finally equations of the following form are obtained 



\'-{B) 



