"The only important variables of interest must involve averaging over many of the degrees of freedom. Statistical mechanics is the formalization of this intuitive concept. The problems to be addressed... are threefold: under what circumstances can the properties of a physical system be defined by the behavior of an appropriate small set of variables, what are the appropriate sets of relevant variables, and how can one calculate the properties of the system in terms of these variables."
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Original Language: English
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Ivo Sachs, Siddhartha Sen, James Sexton Elements of Statistical Mechanics With an Introduction to Quantum Field Theory and Numerical Simulation (2006) Ch. 1 The Problem, p. 2.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics
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Statistical mechanics
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