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In the late 19th century, the possibility that physical systems might be described in probabilistic ways, rather than deterministically, was anathema to most scientists. Ludwig Boltzmann was one of the first iconoclasts to declare that heat-as the energy of motion of atoms-should be described statistically. In Boltzmann's Atom: The Great Debate That Launched a Revolution in Physics (The Free Press, $24), science writer David Lindley describes engagingly and broadly...