German Z's

The German word for the partition function Z in statistical mechanics, Zustandsumme, is just darn cool. It's literally "sum over states," which is exactly what Z is. "Partition function" is albeit somewhat easier on the tongue for those of us who aren't German speakers...

It's going to be a German Z week for me; I also have to read the proof of the Zassenhaus Lemma for Algebra (and no, I haven't done the reading yet and so can't really say what it is).