View Single Post
  #1  
Old February 16th 08 posted to sci.physics.relativity,sci.physics,fr.sci.physique,fr.sci.maths,fr.sci.philo
Pentcho Valev
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,548
Default ENTROPY: SUPREME LAW OF NATURE OR SCIENCE-KILLER?

http://web.mit.edu/keenansymposium/o...und/index.html
ARTHUR EDDINGTON: "The law that entropy always increases, holds, I
think, the SUPREME POSITION among the laws of Nature. If someone
points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in
disagreement with Maxwell's equations--then so much the worse for
Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation--
well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your
theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can
give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest
humiliation."

http://www.phys.uu.nl/igg/jos/

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
JOS UFFINK: "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://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/homepage.htm

http://www.beilstein-institut.de/boz...nishBowden.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."

Perhaps it is time now, after 150 years of head-in-the-sand-another-
part-of-the-body-up position, to reconsider Clausius' 1850 INVALID
deduction of the original version of the second law of thermodynamics:

http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Clausius.html
"Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Warme" 1850 Clausius: "If we now
suppose that there are two substances of which the one can produce
more work than the other by the transfer of a given amount of heat,
or, what comes to the same thing, needs to transfer less heat from A
to B to produce a given quantity of work, we may use these two
substances alternately by producing work with one of them in the above
process. At the end of the operations both bodies are in their
original condition; further, the work produced will have exactly
counterbalanced the work done, and therefore, by our former principle,
the quantity of heat can have neither increased nor diminished. The
only change will occur in the distribution of the heat, since more
heat will be transferred from B to A than from A to B, and so on the
whole heat will be transferred from B to A. By repeating these two
processes alternately it would be possible, without any expenditure of
force or any other change, to transfer as much heat as we please from
a cold to a hot body, and this is not in accord with the other
relations of heat, since it always shows a tendency to equalize
temperature differences and therefore to pass from hotter to colder
bodies."

Pentcho Valev


Ads
 

Debt Help - Leopard Geckos - Savings - Cheap Car Insurance - Loans