An experimental test of the Boltzmann equation: Argon

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Recent theoretical work has shown that the kinetic theory of dilute gases, as expressed in the Boltzmann equation and the Chapman-Enskog method of solution, is not rigorously based in the sense that the Boltzmann equation has not been shown rigorously to follow from the laws of classical or quantum mechanics. The widely-held view that the theory is justified by agreement with experiment is not firmly based, since no stringent test has ever been made. This paper describes such a test, in which an independently and precisely determined potential function is used to calculate transport properties for argon, which are found to be in excellent agreement with the best modern measurements.