At 5:37 PM 01/20/2015, Malcom Dean wrote:
Entropy is a mathematical variable which balances equations, but cannot possibly describe the conditions and actual processes which lead to work, enable its completion, or detail its purpose. May I add some qualifications? Entropy must be a nice item to talk about if the issue is on the whole bookkeeping on a long time scale. Instead, if one is interested in the nitty-gritty of concrete events and processes in thermodynamics, what may be observed there must be the principle of first come, first served. That is the participation of the rate-dependent processes. Thermodynamics allows at least two distinct classes of rate process. One is quasi static as riding on the slowly moving equilibrium, and one more is adiabatic as responding very rapidly to the changes occurring in the neighborhood. If we are interested in the concrete processes on a short time scale, the dominance of the adiabatic processes may explicitly be visible there. There would be no hurricanes nor typhoons in the tropical ocean if the adiabatic processes are dismissed. Of course, the entropy business could eventually enter in the long run if we do not care much about the difference making a difference in between. Koichiro
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