Bose-Einstein condensation of the ideal gas

History

Bose-Einstein condensates originate with Bose cueing Einstein on the importance of statistics. There are 2 + 1 papers from Einstein on this topic:

1. Quantentheorie des einatomigen idealen Gases. A. Einstein in Königliche Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sitzungsberichte 261-267 (1924).
2. Quantentheorie des einatomigen idealen Gases. A. Einstein in Sitzungsberichte der Preu\SSischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1:3 (1925).
3. Zur Quantentheorie des idealen Gases. A. Einstein in Sitzungsberichte der Preu\SSischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1:18 (1925).

The first two papers are those usually recognized as providing the theory of BEC, in particular predicting the accumulation of particles in the ground state. The third paper was trying to justify the results without recourse to what was actually the most important: the statistics. It appears that neither Einstein nor Bose were aware of the link to indistinguishability, with Einstein, in particular, looking at the "statistical dependence" of Bose as an assumption. For Ehrenfest and others, such results were outright qualified as "disgusting".

Pérez and Sauer give the following chronology of the important developments:

• 4 June 1924 Bose writes to Einstein
• ca. 2 July 1924 Bose's paper (translated by Einstein) received by Zeitschift für Physik
• 10 July 1924 Einstein's first paper on QTMIG presented to the Prussian Academy (PA)
• 20 September 1924 Einstein's first paper on QTMIG published (Einstein 1924)
• December 1924 Einstein's second paper on QTMIG signed and Bose's paper published (Bose 1924)
• 8 January 1925 Einstein’s second paper on QTMIG presented to PA
• 29 January 1925 Einstein’s third paper on QTMIG presented to PA
• 9 February 1925 Einstein’s second paper on QTMIG published (Einstein 1925a)
• 5 March 1925 Einstein’s third paper on QTMIG published (Einstein 1925a)