  Boltzmann is often portrayed as a staunch defender of the atomic view of matter, at a time when the dominant opinion in the German-speaking physics community, led by influential authors like Mach and Ostwald, disapproved of this view. Indeed, the story goes, in the late nineteenth century any attempt at all to search for a hypothetical, microphysical underpinning of macroscopic phenomena was regarded as suspicious. Further, serious criticism on his work was raised by Loschmidt and Zermelo. Various passages in Boltzmann's writing, especially in the late 1890s, complain that his work was hardly noticed (entitling one article “On some of my lesser-known papers on gas theory and their relation to the same” (1879b) or even about a “hostile attitude” (1898a, v) towards gas theory, and of his awareness of “being a powerless individual struggling against the currents of the time” (ibid.).