(I bit: a used one enroute, for a pittance + mere $4 ship)
Interesting alt-Amazon format; have to see how you get there. After I ordered: scanned some of the free-pages .pdf

Already I infer about Ludwig a well-earned Y.P.B.--for prescience, literally pre- -science (science as 'done' by 'peers', just then.)
And surprised how he fits within other recent explorations (see below)--or was nearby.. yet missed a prime connection! or two.
He needed that encouragement amidst the ungrateful wretches whose minds he meant to expand--Tungsten is very hard.
(Fortunately, as was eventually the case: it's also brittle.) Heads exploded?

Reviewer, Thomas P. Seager opines:

...
What Lindley has done is give us a wonderfully practical and insightful guide into the world of physics AND the world of academia at the same time. The 19th century debates (in which Boltzmann was more often than not at the center) about what constitutes legitimate science, what constitutes admissable argument or reasoning, what seperates hypothesis from theory from fact, about the nature of thermodynamics and whether it is a discipline that must rely upon the atomic "hypothesis" or be developed completely independently... these debates still shape the scholastic experience of engineers and physicists today!

In some ways, then, Boltzmann's Atom is a cautionary tale for future research faculty. It may hold special meaning for graduate students or philosophers of science, but readers of all background may agree with me that it is a fascinating study in both human frailty and the physical world around us.

I anticipate seeing what Mr. Lindley makes of the current Huge-questions re say, How shall we treat next, intellectual excursions into realms beyond even the possibility of 'experimental verification', as always means: Yet? via guessable techno means.. or At-all, ever?

Then onto: Mathematical manipulations, via Identities and such are almost limitless--and even their (math) provability / after one groks their intent--also consumes much time in the digestion. Yet Einstein's quip re match seems as apropos as any other: (about math proofs and Reality) So we see we can't go back to [I don't believe that atoms exist] Mach, nor can we embrace the gedanken-experiment as complete-enough substitute for that (pedantic? limiting?-) rigor

What I do not expect to find: is some New litmus-grade Test of the Reality defined by any Theorem. So long as language demands [Referents]
and metaphor is the commonest/necessary model during exploration: the 'metaphysics' from the Indian continent are apt to appear somewhere within
the present/next meta-Physics.
Neither Induction nor Deduction may ever catch more than a glimpse of whatever [Reality] "is" ... it very-much seems to me.

Anyway.. pondering an enigma wrapped in a codex from a parallel Universe of anti-matter with a different Cosmological 'constant'
keeps us off the streets (if it doesn't fry too many of the weaker neurons--there's always Danger somewhere.)


(Will save comments for anon on Lindley's, The End of Physics)--some thoughtful reviews and some serendipitous connections re Boltzmann:
Vienna Circle, Karl Popper, Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein's Poker again) and: Boltzmann, apparently just-missing out on several contacts there..
His bio files under Tragedy via insouciance of 'peers' (and by lousy birth-timing?)

An ex-library book, hard-cover in v.good shape.

Stamped on flyleaf:

DISCARDED
OUTDATED, REDUNDANT
MATERIAL

PALM BEACH LIBRARY
WEST PALM BEACH FLORIDA 33406

OK: maybe they had Two? and only One HS-physics grad in the county.

{{Sheesh}} Floriduh again: got opinions on 'relevance' and Everything,
whether or not they have an inkling about any topic's 'currency'.
(Maybe some refugees from Pasadena? members of the Calif Textbook Committee, rendered infamous by Feynman's famous scathing review of their ad hoc Reviewing non-process,)

Thanks! though, FL: saved me cost of a month's supply of decent chow for 3-4 ferals.. they say: Pffffttt!
Now on to.. disproving (am confident via quick scan) their acumen in yet another area of human Valuez.