02 February 2018 1 3K Report

There are many people the fields of economics, science and engineering who are making statements that a 'steady-state' closed or open systems are possible (e.g. water flowing into a bathtub; or a steady-state economy), however I would argue that a closed/open system can only be steady-state for a finite period of time, and not for all time. For this reason perfect steady-state does not actually exist anywhere in the Universe.

My assumption is that the Universe is transient and is expanding (from a Big Bang) in a way that is explained by increasing entropy.

What do we say to people who claim that a steady-state system is a legitimate concept, whereby a material throughput (P) is constant over time such that dP/dt = 0 for all time (t) for the system?

Are people perpetuating a philosophical error in the application of the laws of thermodynamics for real world applications? Many people are stating that the first law of thermodynamics defines the concept of the steady state economy. I argue that the second law of thermodynamics actually tell us that perfect steady-state is actually impossible. Or in other words, people are mis-interpreting the first law. Your thoughts?

Best, Delton

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