The ergodic hypothesis states that, over time, a system's time averages and ensemble averages will converge, allowing for the statistical properties of a thermodynamic system to be described by a single state. This concept bridges the gap between microscopic behaviors of particles and macroscopic observables in statistical mechanics, suggesting that the long-term behavior of a system can be understood through its statistical properties. This idea is crucial for deriving thermodynamic laws from statistical mechanics.
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