Some reflections about open problems in statistical mechanics are offered on the occasion of the award of the IUPAP Boltzmann medal.

Predicting measurable thermodynamic and kinetic properties of solids from first-principles requires the use of statistical mechanics. A major challenge for materials of technological importance arises from the fact that first-principles electronic structure calculations of elementary excited...

This study introduces the constrained forms of the Shannon information entropy and Kullback–Leibler cross-entropy functions. Applicable to a closed system, these functions incorporate the constraints on the system in a generic fashion, irrespective of the form or even the number of the...

In den letzten drei Jahrhunderten ist die Wirtschaft in vielen Ländern - langfristig gesehen - dauernd gewachsen. Materieller Mangel ist in den entwickelten Ländern weitgehend verschwunden. Für die Erkenntnis der Leistungsfähigkeit der Marktwirtschaft wie der Defizite der sozialistischen...

We compare and contrast three different, but complementary views of "structure" and "pattern" in spatial processes. For definiteness and analytical clarity we apply all three approaches to the simplest class of spatial processes: one-dimensional Ising spin systems with finite-range interactions....

Today, Alchian's "Uncertainty, evolution and economic theory" (1950) is hailed by evolutionary economists as a most important piece, which resumed an evolutionary brand of theorizing in economics after the eclipse of the interwar period. On the other hand, Alchian's article is also cherished by...