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Article #5432WHAT THERMODYNAMICISTS HAVE TAUGHT FOR 140 YEARS
From: Pentcho Valev
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:39
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:39
75 lines
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6144 bytes
http://www.beilstein-institut.de/bozen2004/proceedings/CornishBowden/CornishBowden.htm Athel Cornish-Bowden: "The concept of entropy was introduced to thermodynamics by Clausius, who deliberately chose an obscure term for it, wanting a word based on Greek roots that would sound similar to "energy". In this way he hoped to have a word that would mean the same to everyone regardless of their language, and, as Cooper [2] remarked, he succeeded in this way in finding a word that meant the same to everyone: NOTHING. From the beginning it proved a very difficult concept for other thermodynamicists, even including such accomplished mathematicians as Kelvin and Maxwell; Kelvin, indeed, despite his own major contributions to the subject, never appreciated the idea of entropy [3]. The difficulties that Clausius created have continued to the present day, with the result that a fundamental idea that is absolutely necessary for understanding the theory of chemical equilibria continues to give trouble, not only to students but also to scientists who need the concept for their work." http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/ Jos Uffink: "The historian of science and mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p. 8) ...Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no sense...All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition; a century of philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment; a century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from the unclean... Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to follow the argument Clausius offers... and seven times has it blanked and gravelled me... I cannot explain what I cannot understand....This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING." http://www.worldscibooks.com/popsci/etextbook/6261/6261_preface.pdf Arieh Ben-Naim: "I waited patiently to ask something, though I was not sure what the question would be. What is this thing called entropy and why does it always increase? Is it something we can see, touch or feel with any of our senses? Upon finishing her exposition, the lecturer interjected, "If you do not understand the Second Law, do not be discouraged. You are in good company. You will not be able to understand it at this stage, but you will understand it when you study statistical thermodynamics next year.".....Not only do we not know the source which supplies the fuel for the ever-increasing entropy, but no source is permitted, in principle, no feeding mechanism and no provision for any supplies of anything from the outside. Besides, how is it that "structure" and "order" have crept into the discussion of entropy, a concept that was defined in terms of heat and temperature?......I taught thermodynamics and statistical mechanics for many years. During those years, I came to realize that the mystery associated with the Second Law can never be removed within classical thermodynamics......I believe that the turning point in my own understanding of entropy, hence also in my ability to explain it to my students came when I was writing an article.....Once the haze dissipated, everything became crystal clear. Not only clear, but in fact obvious; entropy's behavior which was once quite difficult to understand, was reduced to a simple matter of common sense. Moreover, I suddenly realized that one does not need to know any statistical mechanics to understand the Second Law. This might sound contradictory, having just claimed that statistical mechanics harbors the clues to understanding the Second Law...." http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemistry/6469.html Arieh Ben-Naim: "A FAREWELL TO ENTROPY. The principal message of this book is that thermodynamics and statistical mechanics will benefit from replacing the unfortunate, misleading and mysterious term "entropy" with a more familiar, meaningful and appropriate term...." Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com
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X-Google-Thread: 10f545,31f70a2d4266860b,start X-Google-Thread: 10b271,31f70a2d4266860b,start X-Google-Thread: fa4c1,31f70a2d4266860b,start X-Google-Thread: f55d3,31f70a2d4266860b,start X-Google-Thread: 1139f8,31f70a2d4266860b,start X-Google-Attributes: gid10f545,gid10b271,gidfa4c1,gidf55d3,gid1139f8,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!u72g2000hsf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Pentcho Valev <pvalev@yahoo.com> Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity,sci.physics,fr.sci.physique,fr.sci.philo,fr.sci.maths Subject: WHAT THERMODYNAMICISTS HAVE TAUGHT FOR 140 YEARS Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 23:39:20 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 75 Message-ID: <9177a235-c547-4815-8f27-98c6f6acb645@u72g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 85.91.141.163 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1204443561 11753 127.0.0.1 (2 Mar 2008 07:39:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 07:39:21 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: u72g2000hsf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=85.91.141.163; posting-account=Lz-LbgoAAABPDavKeW-eYeobwLHD_cvQ User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe)