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Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman has Feynman ascribing to Onsager the following quote (during the International Conference of Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, in 1953):

"We should tell Feynman that nobody has ever figured out the order of any transition correctly from first principles."

Is there reason to believe/disbelieve Onsager said this? Was this true at the time? When did someone first correctly show the order of a phase transition from first principles? (I realize "show" probably has in this case multiple interpretations corresponding to different levels of rigour required I would leave this open to those answering.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Is there a date or a period for that quote? $\endgroup$
    – Mauricio
    Oct 19 at 23:19
  • $\begingroup$ From aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/… I think it was during the 1953 meeting in Japan. $\endgroup$
    – Kvothe
    Oct 20 at 9:39
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    $\begingroup$ The exchange happened at the International Conference of Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, 1953, where Feynman was presenting his Atomic Theory of Liquid Helium Near Absolute Zero. What Onsager said was true at the time and may still be true if one really wants it "from first principles". Microscopic reductions of macroscopic behavior are notoriously intractable. $\endgroup$
    – Conifold
    Oct 20 at 9:48
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    $\begingroup$ @Conifold This is as good as an answer... $\endgroup$
    – Cosmas Zachos
    Oct 21 at 20:36
  • $\begingroup$ "Microscopic reductions of macroscopic behavior are notoriously intractable" : this may be true (I don't know enough physics) but this was done for superconductivity (with a Nobel prize); see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_theory . @Conifold $\endgroup$
    – Mikhail Katz
    Oct 22 at 12:44

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