Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (18441906), the Austrian physicist whose greatest

achievement was in the development of statistical mechanics, which explains and

predicts how the properties of atoms and molecules (microscopic properties)
determine the phenomenological (macroscopic) properties of matter such as the
viscosity, thermal conductivity, and diffusion coefcient. The distribution function
(probability of nding particles within a certain range of velocities at a certain
range of locations at a given time) replaces tagging each particle, as in molecular
dynamic simulations. The method saves the computer resources drastically.
In this chapter, the main concept of the Boltzmann equation is introduced.