The Collected Works of J. Willard Gibbs #247483

The laws of thermodynamics, as empirically determined, express the approximate and probable behavior of systems of a great number of particles, or. More precisely, they express the laws of mechanics for such systems as they appear to beings who have not the fineness of perception to enable them to appreciate quantities of the order of magnitude of those which relate to single particles, and who cannot repeat their experiments often enough to obtain any but the most probable results. The laws of statistical mechanics apply to conservative systems of any number of degrees of freedom.