Entropy Enters Its Fourth Year
The law that entropy always increases – the second law of thermodynamics – holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature. If someone points out 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 experiments – 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.(p. 74)
An anthropomorphic concept, not only in the well-known statistical sense that it measures the extent of human ignorance as to the micro-state. Even at the purely phenomenological level, entropy is an anthropomorphic concept. For it is a property, not of the physical system, but of the particular experiments you or I chose to perform on it.(italics original)
References and Notes
- Eddington, A. S. The Nature of the Physical World; Macmillan: New York, 1929. [Google Scholar]
- Jaynes, E. T. Gibbs vs. Boltzmann entropies. Am. J. Phys. 1965, 33, 391–398. [Google Scholar]
- Boltzmann, L. Über die Bezeiehung zwischen dem Zweiten Hauptsatze der mechanischen Wärmetheorie und der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechuung resp. den Sätzen Über das Wärmegleichgewicht, Sitzungsber. Kais. Akad. Wiss. Wien Math. Naturwiss. Classe 1877, 76, 373–435. [Google Scholar]
- Loschmidt, J. Über den Zustand des Wärmegleichgewichtes eines Systems von Körporen mit Rücksicht auf die Schwerkraft, 1. Teil. Sitzungsber. Kais. Akad. Wiss. Wien Math. Naturwiss. Classe 1876, 73, 128–142. [Google Scholar]
- Einstein, A.; Ritz, W. Zum gegenwärtigen Stand des Strahlungsproblem. Phys. Zeit. 1909, 10, 323–324. [Google Scholar]
- Hawking, S.; Penrose, R. The Nature of Space and Time; Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1996. [Google Scholar]
- See the http://www.mdpi.org/entropy/publguid.htm website.
- http://www.mdpi.org/entropy2003/.
© 2002 by MDPI (http://www.mdpi.org). Reproduction for noncommercial purposes permitted.
Share and Cite
Elitzur, A. Entropy Enters Its Fourth Year. Entropy 2002, 4, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.3390/e4010001
Elitzur A. Entropy Enters Its Fourth Year. Entropy. 2002; 4(1):1-2. https://doi.org/10.3390/e4010001
Chicago/Turabian StyleElitzur, Avshalom. 2002. "Entropy Enters Its Fourth Year" Entropy 4, no. 1: 1-2. https://doi.org/10.3390/e4010001