THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[SIXTH SERIES.] 



JUNE 1903. 



LXIV. The Kinetic Theory of Gases developed from a New 

 Standpoint. By J. Ii. Jeans, M.A., Isaac Newton Student 

 and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge* . 



Introduction . 



§ 1. rTIHE aim o£ the present paper is to develop the Kinetic 

 X Theory as far as possible from a purely mathe- 

 matical standpoint, namely that of abstract dynamics, and in 

 this way to remove certain inconsistencies from the theory. 



In the orthodox treatment of the subject a gas is regarded 

 as a collection of similar dynamical systems : these systems 

 interact on one another, and the difficulties of the theory centre 

 largely round the question of determining the occurrence of 

 these interactions. The method of the present paper is to 

 regard the whole gas as a single dynamical system. Follow- 

 ing this plan we are able to escape all the well-known 

 difficulties — the assumption of a molekular-ungeordnet state, 

 the restriction to infinitely small molecules, &c. — and may be 

 able ultimately to arrive at a theory which applies to solids 

 and liquids as well as to gases. 



§ 2. The basis upon which the orthodox treatment of the 

 subject rests can be shown to be neither a priori logical, nor 

 a posteriori justified by success. 



The problem of the Kinetic Theory is, virtually, to follow 

 the motion of a dynamical system starting from an unknown 



* Communicated bv the Author. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 6. Vol. 5. No. 30. June 1908. 2 S 



