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arXiv · 2504.03689

Quantization of the electromagnetic field, entropy of an ideal monoatomic gas, and the birth of Bose-Einstein statistics

Masud Mansuripur
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Abstract

In 1924, Einstein received a short manuscript in the mail from the Indian physicist S.N. Bose. He quickly translated Bose's manuscript to German and submitted it to Zeitschrift für Physik. Within a few weeks, Einstein presented his own findings (using a generalization of Bose's counting method) to a session of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Whereas Bose had suggested a new counting method for the quanta of the electromagnetic field -- one that yielded Planck's blackbody radiation formula -- Einstein applied Bose's method to an ideal monoatomic gas. Shortly afterward, Einstein presented to the Academy a follow-up paper in which he described the Bose-Einstein condensation for the first time. The present paper describes some of the fascinating issues that Einstein struggled with as he attempted to unify the quantum-statistical properties of matter with those of the electromagnetic field.

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Masud Mansuripur. 2025-03-23. Quantization of the electromagnetic field, entropy of an ideal monoatomic gas, and the birth of Bose-Einstein statistics. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3052584

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