🚀 go-pugleaf

Pentcho Valev wrote on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:17:12 -0800:

> http://www.phys.uu.nl/igg/jos/
> 
> http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/ pp. 7-8, 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).
> He is outright cynical about the respect with which nonmathematicians
> treat the Second Law: "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. (ibid. p. 333). 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 (ibid. p. 335)." From this anthology it emerges that although
> many prominent physicists are firmly convinced of, and express
> admiration for the Second Law, there are also serious complaints,
> especially from mathematicians, about a lack of clarity and rigour in
> its formulation. At the very least one can say that the Second Law
> suffers from an image problem: its alleged eminence and venerability is
> not perceived by everyone who has been exposed to it. What is it that
> makes this physical law so obstreperous that every attempt at a clear
> formulation seems to have failed? Is it just the usual sloppiness of
> physicists? Or is there a deeper problem? And what exactly is the
> connection with the arrow of time and irreversibility? Could it be that
> this is also just based on bluff? Perhaps readers will shrug their
> shoulders over these questions. Thermodynamics is obsolete; for a better
> understanding of the problem we should turn to more recent, statistical
> theories. But even then the questions we are about to study have more
> than a purely historical importance. The problem of reproducing the
> Second Law, perhaps in an adapted version, remains one of the toughest,
> and controversial problems in statistical physics."
> 
> Pentcho Valev
> pvalev@yahoo.com

Actually Truesdell complaints are about mathematical deficiencies on some 
archaic presentations of the subject (exactly he critize the CKC 
formulation of thermodynamics).

In his own mathematical approach (rational thermodynamics) Truesdell, of 
course, maintains the Second Law as *valid* and *universal*.

He simply gives a more mathematicall rigorous formulation like a positive 
definite form: d_i(s) >= 0 in the thermodynamical 'phase' space.


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