Fermi's Roulette: ("Method of the most probable distribution") For fermions in a square box the mu-plane is spanned by integers nx,ny; each quantum state is represented by a point. A specific state of a system of N fermions is represented by a set of N inhabited points on that plane. The following game serves to find the average (and also most probable!) distribution of particles on states: Assign N particles randomly to the states on mu-plane Make sure that the sum of the particle energies equals the given system energy, AND Discard all trials in which a state is inhabited by more than one particle Determine the mean number of particles in each state; sort the result according to the state energies To this date, this game has never actually been played; rather, its outcome was calculated as seen in the textbooks. [Code: EFRoulette] Back