🚀 go-pugleaf

On Feb 17, 8:17 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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."

http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemistry/6469.html
A FAREWELL TO ENTROPY. Statistical Thermodynamics Based on
Information.
by Arieh Ben-Naim (The Hebrew University, Israel)
"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 such as information, missing
information or uncertainty. This replacement would facilitate the
interpretation of the "driving force" of many processes in terms of
informational changes and dispel the mystery that has always
enshrouded entropy."

The money-spinner called "entropy" does not seem to work anymore so
"scientists" are looking for other ways of destroying human
rationality and making money in the process. Another money-spinner
called "Einstein's relativity" does not seem to work either and the
respective "scientists" are leaving the sinking ship in panic:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/browse_frm/thread/efc0f544955de7d9?

Soon all shopkeepers selling dead science will have to offer some new
product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTSAFcLXqYY

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com