This chapter develops a detailed conceptual framework for micronations to better understand and interrogate their common features and considerable diversity. It does so by comparing and contrasting micronations to recognised sovereign states and other state-like entities. As we explain, a wide variety of entities with more or less effective government, more or less legitimate claims to statehood, and more or less recognition and acceptance by individual states and the international community, exist around the world. By developing a ‘statehood spectrum’ along which a range of state and state-like entities may be placed, these complexities can be unravelled and a clearer picture of what makes micronations distinct emerges. We find that micronations are self-declared nations that perform and mimic acts of sovereignty, and adopt many of the protocols of nations, but lack a foundation in domestic and international law for their existence and are not recognised as nations in domestic or international forums.

The statistical basis of statistical mechanics is introduced using probability and probability distributions, including the binomial and Gaussian distributions.The example of a random walk is used to illustrate the relationship between these distributions and to introduce the central limit theorem.Microstates of quantum and classical systems are defined, along with the multiplicity function, which counts the number of macroscopically identical microstates in a given macrostate.The enumeration of microstates leads to the idea that ignorance of the exact microstate of a system in a macrostate can be quantified with the entropy.