Bose-Einstein statistics, one of two possible ways in which a collection of indistinguishable particles may occupy a set of available discrete energy states. The aggregation of particles in the same state, which is characteristic of particles obeying Bose-Einstein statistics, accounts for the cohesive streaming of laser light and the frictionless creeping of superfluid helium. The theory of this behaviour was developed (1924–25) by Albert Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, who recognized that a collection of identical and indistinguishable particles can be distributed in this way.
