  However, in this period he also presented a completely different method, which did not rely on the SZA but rather on the ergodic hypothesis. This approach led to a new form of the distribution function that, in the limit \(N \rightarrow \infty\) reduces to the Maxwellian form. In the same period, he also introduced the concept of ensembles, but this concept would not play a prominent role in his thinking until the 1880s.