Posted on 05/30/2022 7:42:11 PM PDT by algore
In all of physical law, there’s arguably no principle more sacrosanct than the second law of thermodynamics — the notion that entropy, a measure of disorder, will always stay the same or increase.
“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,” wrote the British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington in his 1928 book The Nature of the Physical World.
“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.” No violation of this law has ever been observed, nor is any expected.
But something about the second law troubles physicists. Some are not convinced that we understand it properly or that its foundations are firm. Although it’s called a law, it’s usually regarded as merely probabilistic: It stipulates that the outcome of any process will be the most probable one (which effectively means the outcome is inevitable given the numbers involved).
Yet physicists don’t just want descriptions of what will probably happen. “We like laws of physics to be exact,” said the physicist Chiara Marletto of the University of Oxford. Can the second law be tightened up into more than just a statement of likelihoods?
A number of independent groups appear to have done just that. They may have woven the second law out of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics — which, some suspect, have directionality and irreversibility built into them at the deepest level. According to this view, the second law comes about not because of classical probabilities but because of quantum effects such as entanglement.
It arises from the ways in which quantum systems share information, and from cornerstone quantum principles that decree what is allowed to happen and what is not. In this telling, an increase in entropy is not just the most likely outcome of change. It is a logical consequence of the most fundamental resource that we know of — the quantum resource of information. Quantum Inevitability
Thermodynamics was conceived in the early 19th century to describe the flow of heat and the production of work. The need for such a theory was urgently felt as steam power drove the Industrial Revolution, and engineers wanted to make their devices as efficient as possible.
In the end, thermodynamics wasn’t much help in making better engines and machinery. Instead, it became one of the central pillars of modern physics, providing criteria that govern all processes of change.
I always kinda disturbed with the original simplistic "law" like the moore law it did not really seem to be lawlike.
There were those who said order cannot arise from disorder, and those who said disorder must arise from order.
I sometimes wondered if it can be both/either if influenced by some unknown force or something. (UFS)
I wish Someone would try a Seance to contact Art Bell, cause you never you never know, He might be hosting Open Lines...
“I always kinda disturbed with the original simplistic “law” like the moore law it did not really seem to be lawlike.”
Not a law. Just a wild extrapolation ...
The harder mankind attempts to measure the Hand of God, the further away the answer will become.
The author said a lot without
saying anything. A classic example of entropy.
What! What?
What about the ‘settled science’? That is all I have heard for the past 3-4 years, so this must be heresy.
I am pretty sure it should read "providing criteria that describe all processes of change." To govern is more like to prescribe; I think it is more that we observe phenomena and describe them "as far as we know".
I think the theorists are looking for ways to avoid the inevitability of the second law, so maybe they wouldn't be troubled by my assertion here (I'm not trying to be elusive; but I am perfectly pleased with the inevitability of the second law as we have long held it to imply).
I'm not at all sure WHY some theorists would like to make the make the second law less inviolable. Maybe it's because it would make the theory of evolution more plausible?
“will be the most probable“
May.
If nature abhors a vacuum, does nature abhor order? Once had a boss who subscribed to the theory of business known as "more disruption, please". Organizations become stagnant and die with out challenges and strife. Does this happen in nature?
Newtonian mechanics is an excellent model for how many systems act. It wasn't the last word, but for those of us who don't have atom smashers in the garage, it works pretty well, and conforms to our reality.
The work doesn’t actually change the Second Law. It just deepens the understanding of why it functions as it does.
I could be wrong, but what I think it is stating, is that it is not necessarily a law.
If you like old time radio.
https://archive.org/details/TheMonolithCDAudio/06.+MONOLITH+2738+Excalibur.mp3
If you have a really good car stereo the whole cd is good
There were those who said order cannot arise from disorder, and those who said disorder must arise from order.
+++++
The sort of disorder defined in thermodynamics is a temperature related phenomenon. If you pour enough energy into a hot disordered system to cool it to very low temperatures it can be brought to a highly ordered state.
But it never happens on its own without the energy factor. Or so says the 2nd Law.
“In the end, thermodynamics wasn’t much help in making better engines and machinery. “
BS....the laws of thermodynamics led to significant improvements in steam engine energy reclamation and super-heated steam designs that proved more efficient and improved things dramatically.
agreed!
“..BS....the laws of thermodynamics led to significant improvements in steam engine energy reclamation and super-heated steam designs that proved more efficient and improved things dramatically.....”
Exactly....denying that right there makes this article totally suspect.
They’re probably setting up some kind of “proven scientific groundwork” to assist in the lie to the “unwashed masses” as to how energy efficient their EVs are. Who knows what they’re thinking or trying to prove.
what do you mean by “lawlike.” perhaps one of the most intelligent and perceptive human beings that God has allowed to grace this earth can help you out:
“There is a rhythm and a pattern between the phenomena of nature which is not apparent to the eye, but only to the eye of analysis: and it is these rhythms and patterns which we call Physical Laws.”
for example, he goes on to specify the “Law of Gravitation” you have heard of. There have been refinements of course (Einstein), but there is no example of nature failing to “...pay attention to it...” either.
that “...two bodies exert a force upon each other which varies inversely as the square of the distance between them, and varies directly as the product of their masses. (then he gives the formula) ...some kind of constant multiplied by the product of the two masses, divided by the square of the distance. Now if I add the remark that a body reacts to a force by accelerating, or by changing it’s velocity every second to an extent inversely as its mass, or that it changes its velocity more if the mass is lower, inversely as the mass, then I have said everything about the Law of Gravitation that needs to be said. Everything else is a mathematical consequence of those two things.”
—Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law.
he’s says it perfectly. but, i’ll simply add, nature is God’s, therefore nature’s Laws are God’s as well. nothing conditioned completely on nature (the natural) will ever be found to violate them, and since they’re God’s Laws, that’s a “very good’ thing.
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