Hi everyone
This post is relevant to a few threads in this list
“Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?” and “Two
apparently different forms of entropy”.
I am sorry that I haven’t posted to this list for a while. I have been
very busy with my work.
In my latest research I have found that Quantum Mechanics, in particular
the Pauli Exclusion Principle, can be used to go around limitations of
classical physics and break the Second Law.
Papers describing the research are publicly available at
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/11/4700
and
https://sites.google.com/a/entropicpower.com/entropicpower-com/Thermoelectric_Adiabatic_Effects_Due_to_Non-Maxwellian_Carrier_Distribution.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1(Currently
under review)
These papers describe experimentally observed thermoelectric adiabatic
effects (the existence of a voltage without any heat flow, and the
existence of a temperature differential without any input current.)
Here is some background: The story begins with a thermodynamicist of the
nineteenth century, Josef Loschmidt, who challenged Boltzmann and
Maxwell regarding the Second Law. Loschmidt argued that the temperature
lapse in the atmosphere could be used to run a heat engine, thereby
violating the Second Law. Loschmidt was wrong as shall be explained
below but it is instructive to go through his reasoning. Loschmidt
argued that the atmospheric temperature lapse occurs spontaneously, is
self renewing and is due to the decrease in kinetic energy of molecules
as they go up against the gravitational gradient between collisions.
Therefore the atmospheric temperature decreases adiabatically with
altitude and could be used to run a heat engine.
However, Loschmidt ignored the fact that molecular energies are
distributed over a range of values and that gravity separates the
molecules according to their energy in a fashion analogous to a mass
spectrometer separating particles according to mass. Molecules with
greater energy can reach greater heights. If one assigns a Maxwellian
distribution to the molecules (exponentially decaying function of
energy), then any vertical translation of a group of molecules results
in a lowering of their kinetic energy, corresponding to a left shift of
their distribution. After the distribution is renormalized to account
for the lower density at higher elevation, the original distribution is
recovered indicating that the gas is isothermal, not adiabatic as
Loschmidt conjectured. This effect is due to the exponential nature of
the distribution. An addition (of potential energy) in the exponent
corresponds to a multiplication of the amplitude.So Loschmidt was wrong:
the Loschmidt effect (lowering of KE with altitude) is exactly canceled
by the energy separation effect caused by gravity. However he was only
wrong with respect to gases that follow Maxwell’s distribution.
Electrical carriers in semiconductor materials are Fermions following
Fermi-Dirac statistics and the above argument does not apply to them.
When subjected to a voltage they do develop a temperature gradient. This
temperature differential is hard to observe because it is promptly
shorted by heat phonons. As experiments at Caltech have shown (see my
papers), it can be observed in certain circumstances such as in high Z
thermoelectric materials in which electrical carriers and heat phonons
are strongly decoupled. The Onsager reciprocal of the temperature
differential is a voltage differential which has also been
experimentally observed.
The two papers above describe these results in detail.
In summary, quantum mechanics, in particular the Pauli Exclusion
Principle, can be used to bypass classical mechanics in generating
macroscopic effects violating the Second Law.
Other relevant papers:
1)Hanggi and Wehner arXiv:1205.6894 <http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6894>show
that any violation to the Uncertainty Principle would result in a
violation of the Second Law. This does not contradict my research which
shows use of QM to violate the Second Law. The paper also suggests for
future research the reverse proposition that any violation of the Second
Law would result in a violation of the Uncertainty Principle. This, if
true, would contradict my research.
2)Lloyd, Seth,
http://people.physics.anu.edu.au/~tas110/Teaching/Lectures/L5/Material/Lloyd06.pdf
<http://people.physics.anu.edu.au/%7Etas110/Teaching/Lectures/L5/Material/Lloyd06.pdf>.
This paper discusses derivation of 2^nd Law from QM.
I welcome any comment or criticism that you may have.
George Levy
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
