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 Thermodynamics is obsolete; for a better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
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.
--
I follow
http://canonicalscience.org/en/misce...guidelines.txt