Much like any other time when a theory is challenged by new findings, we just do not abandon the theory completely. We seek to generalize the theory in such a way that it includes the seemingly contradicting new findings. We have examples of classical mechanics, electromagnetism etc.

The same is true for the second law of thermodynamics as well. As we look for smaller and smaller system where the statistical description of the system is no longer valid, we still have a second-law like theory explaining the system. For the case of Maxwell's demon, we introduce the information entropy and extend the idea of thermodynamic entropy. This results in having a generalized second-law of thermodynamics, which now includes the information entropy as well.

One can of course question what happens when we abandon macroscopic system. For smaller enough system, the fluctuations dominate. In this case, we have the stochastic thermodynamics, in which one can still see a second-law like behavior, set by the fluctuation theorems. I don't want to go into details that much but I think I made my point clear. It is my opinion that whenever a theory is challenged, abandoning it completely is not the most efficient and useful way. Rather, it is the process of generalization of well-known theories.

Kind regards,

Mert

.......The idea behind it is that one important fundamental pillar is recently dismantled; Preprint Maxwell's Demon and its Fallacies Demystified

Dear Casper:

How we can abandon this Law ?

Is not that we choose to follow it, or that we created it.

The Second Law of themrodynamics is a fundamental Law of nature, it means, it is there, out there. We cannot chose wheter to stick to it or not.

If we are dealing with a Thermodynamic System, The evolution of the System's Dynamics in a long term (of time) will be according to the Second Law, there is no option.

So, This question is no more than hypothetical.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics has its "flexibilities", to put it in some way. But all Physical Law have them: Netwton's Laws, Einstein's Theory of RG, even the Laws we use in the realm of Quantum Mechanics.

Boltzmann discovered in 1800-1801 that the underlying nature of the Second Law seems to be statistical. So , this Law is not a Universal Law (but again, any Physical Law is, neither the Laws and models that Apply to Quantum field Theory nor our most modern Theories of Gravity.

But it continues to be a valid relation. On a further explanation, we can say that; the number of times regarding a particular escenario where the law stands, is so inimaginable high that we can say with complete confidence, that in practice the Second Law of Thermodynamics is always valid.

What I mean to say is that, if you look at the evolution of the Thermodynamic state of a thermal engine (to say an example), or a thermal device which transport heat from one hot zone to another cold zone, we can be sure that the 99.999999999...1 % of the times, the behavior of the State of the system will be acording to the 2nd Law ... meaning that the Entropy generated by the heat transfer process, plus the Entropy generated by the surroundings is going to be a net positive number, greater that cero (DeltaS >0),

The above implies that in the absence of any source of mechanical work (i.e. a heat pump or a compressor), the Heat will flow from the high temperature zone to the cold temperature zone.

And you can do the same experiment, continuously, for a period of time equivalent to the age of the Universe (10^9 years), and maybe (just maybe, and in a manner of exemplification) you will breake the Second Law, and maybe (there is a chance different than zero) just one time, the Second Law won't follow your experiment, there is a chance, very, very very bitny tiny, but not zero. And maybe in one of these tries you will see all the molecules rearrange themselves in an isolated region within the system, considering of course that you will have to perform an equally well controlled experiment a trillion trillion of times, with exactly the same controll on the initial parameters, and same conditions.

Best Regards !

First, let's get things straight: the manuscript you're citing is by no means a fine piece of work and I seriously doubt that it will see the light in any reasonable peer-reviewed journal. That being said, of course that the second law of thermodynamics could in principle be violated tomorrow, since the law is both, statistical in essence and empirical. It is true that there are non-resolved issues in thermodynamics (and statistical mechanics) which may affect the way we understand or formulate the second law. To cite just a couple, one has the constancy of Shannon-Gibss entropy upon Liouvillian evolution and, to me even more relevant, the counterintuitive world of systems with long-range interactions (like gravity), for which thermodynamics is not trivial at all. In fact, it was shown a few years ago (see the link below) that in a mechanical system of particles interacting only gravitationally, an arrow of time emerges, challwnging the widespread view of the universe having a low entropy initial state).

Of course, in spite of these puzzles, most of the evidence (to date) seems to support the idea that the second law is solid as rock.

Best wishes,

Reinaldo.

"Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 181101 (2014) - Identification of a Gravitational Arrow of Time" https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.181101

Much like any other time when a theory is challenged by new findings, we just do not abandon the theory completely. We seek to generalize the theory in such a way that it includes the seemingly contradicting new findings. We have examples of classical mechanics, electromagnetism etc.

The same is true for the second law of thermodynamics as well. As we look for smaller and smaller system where the statistical description of the system is no longer valid, we still have a second-law like theory explaining the system. For the case of Maxwell's demon, we introduce the information entropy and extend the idea of thermodynamic entropy. This results in having a generalized second-law of thermodynamics, which now includes the information entropy as well.

One can of course question what happens when we abandon macroscopic system. For smaller enough system, the fluctuations dominate. In this case, we have the stochastic thermodynamics, in which one can still see a second-law like behavior, set by the fluctuation theorems. I don't want to go into details that much but I think I made my point clear. It is my opinion that whenever a theory is challenged, abandoning it completely is not the most efficient and useful way. Rather, it is the process of generalization of well-known theories.

Kind regards,

Mert

In any computer simulation, including a simulation of celestial mechanics, quantum mechanics can at least be modeled as classical Brownian motion on the scale of Planck's constant, a proposal which owes something to @Reinhold Furth. Start with a highly ordered system, run it for a while, hit the time reversal button and I think you will find that the original order is not restored when Brownian motion is present, and in fact the Brownian motion is amplified by any tendency towards dynamical chaos. The system is microscopically reversible, but has macroscopic properties which are not reversible. There is something decadent about the system which is measured by a property called entropy. The Second Law of Thermodynamics will be around for a while yet.

This is not really a scientifically well formulated proposition. Of course we can abandon a human made concept like an analytical explanation and theory. We can leave it like that or transfer the components to a new concept. Besides, I really meant the literal exact question "Can the second law of thermodynamics be abandoned?" And to make a large step; I really believe it can; it should be abandoned.

In my opinion the second law of thermodynamics is trying to include two different phenomena which shouldn’t be included in one thermodynamic law for reasons of vagueness and misinterpretations.

The first phenomenon is the partial conversion of a heat flow into partial flow of exergy-/work-flow (kinetic and potential energy flow). It is currently described by the Carnot theorem (of which in my opinion no theoretical nor analytical proof exist, while Caratheodory didn't succeed). The second phenomenon is irreversibility. This phenomenon is described by Clausius theorem and Maxwell's demon.

I have studied fluid flow with heat transfer involved according to multi-physics, multi-scale phenomenological non-equilibrium thermodynamics for quite a while. Without explaining into detail in this writing, I am quite certain that I unraveled both phenomena. In order to show this, I have setup different analytical thought experiments. Most extraordinary is that it clearly pins irreversibility at a proper fundamental level. One of these thought experiments is explained in a draft paper titled: True nature of irreversibility; two orbiting spheres https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349059774_True_nature_of_irreversibility_two_orbiting_spheres

The outcomes of these thought experiments are among other things:

If you have two co-orbiting spheres plus a bit of Brownian motion, there is no mechanism to amplify the motion, so all that will be seen is diffusion on a small scale. If we have several spheres then dynamical chaos kicks in and small amounts of Brownian motion become rapidly amplified. This is where entropy production arises.

The second law of thermodynamics is really the first law of cynicism. If I cannot quite prove it, then nevertheless I won't be investing any money in anything which looks like a proposal to build a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. My expectation is a statistical likelihood of saying goodbye to my money.

The reason I studied fluid flow with heat transfer involved for a while, is to be able to develop highly advanced heat exchange technologies such as (near-) isothermal air compression/expansion for iCAES.

Even if my analytical findings of irreversibility are not correct, they brought three groundbreaking inventions (technology frameworks):

As I'm an engineer, no scientist nor do I have scientific ambitions, my work (and of my team) aims at technology development and commercial technology transfer. Besides revealing a new analytical heat exchanger formula1 (mathematically derived), we will not publish the analytical findings of irreversibility in the public domain; while this could disturb the commercial technology transfer. Besides that, as I have observed and understood, in science the phenomenon of irreversibility is quite a sensitive subject within various scientific branches and also in the public domain (Origin of life, evolution, free-will, etc.).

(1) New analytical heat exchanger formula;Technical Report Disclosure of elementary feedforward control algorithm for h...

Dear Reinaldo Garcia-Garcia, you referred to the article Identification of a Gravitational Arrow of Time

As I read you bio I could imagine you are familiar with this scientific branch. Are you able and willing to have a discussion about this topic?

In fact I would like to invite scientists with experience of irreversibility to contact me, for reasons mentioned earlier, as I can explain my extraordinary findings of irreversibility out of the public.

For reasons I mentioned in my previous message (we have no primary scientific ambitions), I invite scientists with experience of irreversibility to contact me as I can explain my extraordinary findings of irreversibility in a more private domain.

In addition to ResearchGate, we just initiated #fixthermodynamics to educate a wider audience about the relevance and status of the second law of thermodynamics and to foster a sense of urgency and a call to action from various stakeholders outside the scientific field. I started a LinkedIn group with the same hashtag to communicate with less scientific stakeholders.

Can we rule out the arrow of time?

Yes if it's a superfluid, but we still have conservation of energy. Superfluidity will break down quickly the moment you try to use it in an engineering project.

Given the very high risk of losing any investment, it is suggested that a sense of deliberation would be more appropriate. Be aware of the difference between the various types of perpetual motion machine.

If you accept: "Stochastic processes are experimentally verified", then you can ask "What is the meaning of this statement for maccroscopic phenomena ?" The attached paper tries to give an answer to this question which has something to do with the Second Law. --------> Stochastic Thermodynamics

I am interested in computer simulation in general terms. The question arising from your paper, if I have interpreted it correctly, is how would I model a rarefied gas in a cylinder with a piston being moved at supersonic speed?

I would model it as a Hamiltonian system with a bit of added Brownian motion to represent quantum mechanics. This model is based upon Reinhold Furth's comparison between quantum mechanics and classical Brownian motion. I would expect to see the Brownian motion acting through shock waves to produce irreversible results. Randomness is certainly sufficient for entropy production. I believe that it is also necessary, but cannot actually prove it.

“The [second] law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. … 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.” ― SIR ARTHUR STANLEY EDDINGTON

Jose Gaite -- bold words, but not true. The second law is a statistical statement. The fluctuation theorem of Searles and Evans quantifies the relative probability that the entropy of a system which is currently away from thermodynamic equilibrium will increase or decrease over a given amount of time. Violations of the second law over very short periods of time have been observed.

The second law of thermodynamics is useful for equilibrium systems. For nonequilibrium, where entropy does not increase , you can use cumulative entropy that increase because the entropy is always positive. ( see my paper in International journal of molecular and theoretical physics, 2017).

Occasional violations of the Second Law do exist, but the expected cost of tracking them down will always exceed the expected benefit of exploiting them. Don't waste your money !

Dear Len G Margolin ,

Of course, Eddington knew for sure that the second law is a statistical statement. However, the existence of statistical fluctuations in no way diminishes its power. You may consider, for example, how the second law was applied to the problem of strong gravitational interactions and gave rise to the concepts of black hole entropy and Hawking radiation.

If a thermodynamic process is described as a stochastic one, then there are realizations with negative entropy production, so called "violations". But the mean value of the entropy production over all realizations is not negative: that is the statement of the Second Law. In this sense, the Second Law is also valid in Stochastic Thermodynamics as in macroscopic theories. The difficulty is that you have to know in both descriptions what the entropy production is. The entropy itself does not play an essential role with respect to the Second Law.

Question: what about is the discussion ??

Entropy is a function which enables us to assess whether a proposed device is in fact a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. It is a matter of experience that our current definition of entropy is well-defined and useful. We haven't invented this function just to baffle undergraduates. If the total entropy of a proposed device appears to be decreasing, think twice about investing in its development.

Processes which increase entropy are friction and viscosity, impulses and shocks, flow separations, anything supersonic, heat transfer and mixing. Engineers who wish to be efficient need to view their work in terms of entropy even when it might look like merely a just-so function or an epi-phenomenon. They should aim to minimise entropy production, but can never hope to actually have negative entropy generation.

Dear W. Muschik ,

Not much to discuss, but we were asked if the second law can be abandoned. One more big guy who would not have done it:

"Therefore, the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that, within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown" ~ Albert Einstein.

David

Your statement is correct for the macroscopic description of thermodanamical systems. But as experiments depict, there are systems for which this description is not sufficient because they behave as stochastic processes. In this case, the Second Law is only satisfied as a mean value: there are (seldom) realization with negative entropy production. Why do you not accept these facts ?

Jose Gaite -- "Of course, Eddington knew for sure that the second law is a statistical statement." Very interesting. I am a connoisseur of the history of science. I know Boltzmann struggled with the question of whether the second law was statistical or absolute. I would very much like to read whatever source you are referencing for this remarkable assertion about Eddington.

W. Muschik -- somewhere I remember a quote that there are as many statements of the second law as there are scientists who make them. I probably agree with your statement (which follows from the fluctuation theorem), but I don't find it useful in my studies of shock waves (for example). Entropy production rate principles that introduce time into the equations are more likely to be useful for systems out of equilibrium. However, the application of these is still not widely agreed upon (I am sure you are familiar with Martyushev's review article).

If you think you have some system which can pick out entropy-reducing fluctuations and make special use of them, then it is going to cost money to run this system, and more than the gain that you might make. Maxwell's demon does not have psychic powers, but needs to observe molecules with the use of photons, and photon-generation is not cheap. I might well be wrong about this, and am not actually called upon to reach any judgement, but I won't be spending any money on anything.

You can't "cancel" the second law, but you could certainly demote it or "abandon" it (especially for macroscopic systems), if you wanted to.

For macroscopic systems the equation for entropy transport and generation (2nd Law) can be derived from conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. And those are sufficient to solve any system (along with the material constitutive equations).

If you write a computer program you need never mention or use "the second law".

You have effectively "abandoned" it.

However, a good numerical method will still obey the 2nd law anyway ... Because it is still valid even if you "demote" it and/or ignore it. Just like other derived equations should still hold (angular momentum, vorticity, or whatever).

The 2nd law is extremely useful - but not required. Aliens that never discovered it would still be able to fully describe and predict the physical world around them (to the same extent that we can). Their explanations would sometime be required to be more complex than ours our.

Side Note:

If any of you are teaching physics please please bash this idea

“The [second] law that entropy always increases,” ― SIR ARTHUR STANLEY EDDINGTON

out of your students heads.

In the real world entropy decreases 50% of the time and entropy increases 50% of the time. No real systems are isolated. The thing that is always positive is entropy generation - NOT entropy change...

If we are writing a computer program to simulate anything which is prone to dynamical chaos, one thing we don't want is different results depending upon whether we use singe, double or (sometimes) quadruple precision. It would be best to deliberately add some Brownian motion and accept that we have abandoned any hope for a unique solution. Our simulation can have a time reversal button added just to see what happens if we run it backwards. We will soon notice that it isn't reversible, and also if we start with a highly ordered state, then it tends to decay into a disordered state, perhaps in some way that we cannot quite define. I would suggest adding classical Brownian motion with an Uncertainty Principle of the same magnitude as that found in quantum mechanics, influenced by @Reinhold Fuerth.

That's the end of the story for physicists. Engineers will introduce a concept of entropy to quantify the irreversibility, and will tell you that if you take over the management of a large industrial plant with a brief to make it more efficient, then you should systemically track down all the processes, such as heat transfer, which increase entropy and try to eliminate such increases as best you can, or at least to make them more efficient. Heat transfer is best done over temperature differences which are as low as possible.

David Porterhouse: "It is a matter of experience that our current definition of entropy is well-defined and useful." That is a very limited point of view. There are many definitions of entropy, each useful in it own area. For example, Shannon (information) entropy is very general, defined for any probability function; Boltzmann entropy is used in gas kinetics where the probability function is that of the microscopic velocities; there is Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy used in dynamical systems, the topological entropy that measures topological complexity, the Cramer function in large deviation theory, and of course the thermodynamic entropy. The latter is probably what you refer to, but it is an equilibrium entropy -- i.e., independent of macroscopic gradients -- and (IMPO) the most limited for physicists.

Various research may be found on my profile. I seem to not be able to post a link.

Why do things age? The second law explains this.

entropy is conserved in the time continuum

for without order we could not have disorder

i said that

Can back-to-back heat engine and heat pump systems be described in all the different ways of defining entropy? I won't "steak" my money on anything resembling a perpetual motion machine.

To Perot:

You are quite right, if you know the corresponding constitutive equations: no Second Law is neccessary to solve the differential equations. But if you ask "what are the possible constitutive equations which are compatible with a given state space", you need the Second Law to single out those of them which contradict the Second Law. If you are a disciple of the statement: "Physicists and engineers know always the correct constitutive equations", you can abandon the Second Law. But of course, the Second Law is more useful than only for constructing constitutive equations.

W. Muschik J. Blair Perot Yes. This is true not only for the physical constitutive laws, but also for the artificial dissipation in Lagrangian/ALE codes. In that case, lack of thermodynamic consistency leads to the phenomenon known as wall-heating which arises from the lack of an artificial heat conduction, as Bill Noh pointed out 40 years ago. There are easier ways to approach this problem than the second law.

As entropy increases spontaneouslay free energy decrease in the system. S>0 such that dS/dt >0 or dF/dt

I hope that I am not going off on a tangent here. The violation of Bell's inequalities is telling us that something in quantum mechanics really is random. This randomness can be represented in thermodynamics by classical Brownian motion on the same scale as the Uncertainty Principle. We will then find that this is sufficient for entropy production in any computer simulation that we do. This is just as well, because without this added randomness we might be struggling with the finite precision available in computer arithmetic. We are not compromising the rigor of our system by adding randomness. It's a physical effect.

Dear Len G Margolin,

Sorry, I have no reference about Eddington's knowledge of statistical mechanics. I have only a plausible argument: Eddington did remarkable research on the mechanism of energy conversion in stars, which involves statistical mechanics concepts. My guess is that he must have been very familiar with Boltzmann's work, as was Einstein. Of course, I am interested in your educated opinion.

Many people have tried to beat the second law. Einstein had to face some when he worked at the patent office. In Spain, we have had the "water engine" reported on TV. Like already said here, I would not put my own money on any such attempt!

The importance of the second law of thermodynamics is increasing in time. We already started to put emphasis on difference between levels of entropy and disorder recently. When we mix water and oil, the lowest entropy of the system achieved when water and oil separate. They are not mixed! There is still some disorder in the system present.

Many researchers, even physicists put proportionality between the level of disorder and entropy.

Some systems show the opposite correlation!

We can give more examples like that. In recent time, biological research showed a growing importance of statistics and entropy in their description. We still do not know the whole story but results achieved so far are pointing towards presence of a greater interplay between life and entropy.

Recently, high entropy alloys started to be developed. They have unexpected properties. Their development is going forward fast long with understanding of their entropy.

I have not recieved formal education in physics and math but what I think is that primes in goldbach conjecture scan be a model for simulation of the universe by gaining an identity in quantum mechanics.Irreversible energy can be represent by randomness amplitudes which are primes such as 3 constant for first microsytem and 3+5, 3+7,3+11.... second constant 5; 5+7, 5+11, 5+11...... this process can go to the infinity. Entropy of goldbach primes can be managed by spacetime operators(density operator) as multiplcation that will be Heat(irrevesible). Heat*(irreversible).Derivative of all micro system expected value of density with randomness heat parameters depending on time will be the definition of the entropy.

Irreversible energy= density. light speed constant. volume with respect to xyz vectors)

Entropy= probability factor. density. light speed constant. volume+ contiunity factor.

How would the introduction of Goldbach's conjecture lead to the destructive interference of probability distributions, which is what we see in quantum mechanics?

My simple version of quantum mechanics (a Hamiltonian system plus a classical Reinhold Fuerth-inspired Uncertainty Principle) definitely cannot deal with destructive interference or with superfluidity, but it is adequate for computer simulations which have thermodynamic consequences. There's an argument that if we have a cylinder full of gas with a pressure gauge and a thermometer attached, then all the molecules are under continuous observation and all their wave functions are collapsed, at least for the purpose of this forum. They are all still subject to an Uncertainty Principle, so it has to be the classical Uncertainty Principle associated with Brownian motion.

It's just a model being applied to a certain purpose so that we are able to think about what might be going on. Wavelike behaviour is irrelevant, and we are also far from superfluidity. That leaves classical Brownian motion as a representation of quantum mechanics by default. I have a general interest in computer simulation, including quantum mechanics, but there is no need to use a wavelike theory when a simpler theory is adequate.

Dear Casper,

many sincere thanks for your opening this interesting and very important discussion thread!

I am dealing with the topic in detail for already about 15 years, so that I hope to have some thoughts to share with the esteemed audience.

So, let us go along with this.

1. "Can Second law of Thermodynamics be abandoned?"

Sure, it is possible to work out a valid, powerful and fruitful physical theory without even mentioning this basic law explicitly - though using its implicit, and throughout valid representation, in combination with metaphysics - and a sheer voluntarism.

The powerful proof of the above statement: Quantum Mechanics - based upon the so-called Equilibrium Thermodynamics and Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics.

In this sense, my answer ought to be largely positive.

2. "Wouldn’t it be an interesting idea to explore the possibility that the troubled second law of thermodynamics can be cancelled, completely?"

My answer is:

IMHO, it is not interesting to explore anything, which is clearly impossible to 100% - even at a prevenient look...

The basic fundamental content expressed by what you are dubbing "the troubled second law of thermodynamics" MUST ANYHOW be present in any realistic physical theory - here I intentionally choose the modal verb MUST.

The actual "TROUBLE" of the law we are discussing here is that the ENERGY TRANSFORMATION is NOT A SEPARATE LAW, it is but an integral part of the TRUE - BASIC - FUNDAMENTAL - NATURAL - LAW:

'The Law of Energy Conservation and Transformation'.

The Total Energy Conservation is a QUANTITATIVE aspect of the Energy notion.

The mutual Transformation of all the Energy types/forms available/imaginable is a QUALITATIVE aspect of the Energy notion.

What is the actual seminal achievement by N. L. S. Carnot, who could cause us to think over the modalities of the Energy types/forms transformation among each other?

The problem he had posed was to prove that Perpetuum Mobile is never possible.

To prove this, he had suggested a theoretical gadget we now know as the Carnot Cycle: It is an idealistic machine with the cyclic working modus, which is designed to convert the Heat into the Mechanical Work, with latter being a USEFUL ENERGY form.

Why Carnot's machine is idealistic?

Because it has no obvious hindrances/obstacles/resistances likewise friction - or similar - it is thus both a THEORETICAL and an IDEALLY ENGINEERED DEVICE.

The actual particular nature of the working material is also not important: It might even be an ideal gas, which is, however, nothing more and nothing less than just a purely mathematical tool to facilitate theoretical analyses. That realistic gases may be partially describable in the ideal gas terms does facilitate engineering efforts.

With all this in mind, what is then the very result by Carnot?

The maximum efficiency of such an IDEAL process to transform a Heat portion into a Work portion is about 25%, whereas we know that if, in reality, we perform a Work portion, the latter will to 100% go over into the Heat (plus we get wear of the working device and materials).

This is why, Heat ought to be the LEAST USEFUL FORM of ENERGY ever known!

Clausius had no time and impulse to realize the actual significance of Carnot's result - although Clausius might still go a truly seminal step toward understanding Carnot's result.

Indeed, what might lie behind the minimum efficiency when we transform the Heat into Work (SIC! - but never vice versa - SIC!)?

Apart from apparent hindrances/obstacles/resistances there are also INTRINSIC ones.

Clausius could introduce the notion to conclusively substantiate the INTRINSIC hindrances/obstacles/resistances under study in terms of the Energy notion: That was just the Entropy notion.

Indeed, Isaac Newton had formulated the Basic Fundamental Mechanical Law we now know as the Third Law of Newton:

Any Action cases the proportional Reaction.

This way, we know now that the more Action, the more Reaction; Zero Action ought to cause Zero Reaction.

Thus, the principal contribution by Clausius, Lord Kelvin and their colleagues was to clarify that Reaction must somehow reach its Maximum Value, so that, if we do have the Driving Force enough, to OVERCOME the MAXIMUM of all the ubiquitous hindrances/obstacles/resistances - to equilibrate, to compensate the latter - then the AIM of the process we are heading for would be REACHABLE at such a cost...

This is just what is in effect behind the Entropy notion.

I hope it is clear that any valid physical/chemical/biological/etc./etc. theory does require a true Entropy notion (either IMPLICITLY or - even better! - EXPLICITLY)...

3. "Maxwells' demon" is a non-scientific emotion. To try digging some science out of it might come for two reason's:

1. Overwhelming emotions, which might retract from doing scientific research...

2. Particular anti-scientific plans, which might kill scientific research in its roots...

4. "CLAUSIUS THEOREM": It is largely underestimated in fact. It is indispensable - especially when treating the Entropy notion EXPLICITLY.

5. "Maybe the second law of thermodynamics is a construct which can't possibly being aligned to physics at all? Simply because it tries to capture phenomena which can't be captured by the constructed idea (methodology) behind the present second law of thermodynamics?"

We should stop trying to separate the Head from the Tail of a truly golden coin:

'The Law of Energy Conservation and Transformation'

- in cutting out the Energy Conservation from the Energy Transformation...

If the coin is intact it is to 100% functional, if not - we need further efforts to provide for the coin's functionality. Well, per se, such an approach ought to be 100% OK, just what Quantum Mechanics' history and fruits do prove... However, absolutizing such approaches might have truly pathological consequences, for the scientific research per se...

The methodology behind the present handbook version of the 'second law of thermodynamics' is exceedingly simple: To separate the coin's head from the coin's tail...

Is this a constructive approach? I guess the poser is largely rhetoric...

6. "If this idea is being explored then one has the cognitive freedom to observe irreversible phenomena from the widest possible perspective."

Our Mother Nature has NO REVERSIBLE phenomena.

REVERSIBLE is only the idealistic theoretical cyclic gadget by N. L. S. Carnot.

Trying to seriously discuss any kind of REVERSIBLE PHENOMENA is nothing more and nothing less than simply to PHYSICALIZE the ingenious model by Carnot, just to produce a phantom PERPETUUM MOBILE with the respective properties, which might never be localized experimentally (either implicitly or explicitly).

In addition to the latter, do render Four Basic Laws out of a Unique Basic Law, do cause overall excitement around some magic Probability of (the God knows what scilicet) - or not less magic Information about the God knows what scilicet... This would give you valid, valuable and seminal theoretical tool as a result of a skillful mathematical exercise...

...A truly different approach: To properly consider coupling between Driving Forces and Entropy (the sum of the pertinent ubiquitous Reactions) may finally deliver the widest possible perspective to observe the irreversible phenomena.

Respectfully yours,

Evgeni Starikov

What I would like to declare is to make a correlation between numbers universe and our universe with respec to entropy. Furthermore I have uploaded a draft about this subject. Uncertainty on entropy of universe can be controlled by goldbach primes.

I think we have a tendency to make things too complicated. Is it possible people are getting entropy flow mixed with entropy generation. I am not familiar with arguments against the second law except in living systems. The second law is not expressed in terms of entropy flow Sf only entropy generation Sg. I like to call it entropy damage. Clausius inequality

dS>=dQ/dT

the inequality holds for irreversible processes Sg, and the equality for reversible ones Sg. Thus entropy flow Sf can be negative or positive. However Sg can only be positive or equal to zero. If you have damage it is irreversible in physics which is entropy generation end of story as far as I know. Only living systems can repair themselves spontaneously. So the second Law is

Sg>0 of Sg=0

and it is not Sf>0.since we also have situation where Sf

Loschmidt's paradox is resolved by introducing quantum mechanical randomness. Brownian motion added to a Hamiltonian system on the same scale as the quantum mechanical Uncertainty Principle is adequate for thermodynamics.

Now we go off on a tangent. I would suggest that quantum mechanical randomness is derived from an irreducible tachyonic Brownian motion which is strictly orthogonal to an oscillation in the other way to travel faster than light. That means that in a numerical method we need to make a random choice between a timelike and a spacelike integration of the Schroedinger equation. We make the same choice for the electromagnetic field. The tripartite interaction of matter, radiation and tachyonic Brownian motion has a weak ability to collapse the wave function. It becomes a strong ability in a detector heavier than the Planck mass, or where there is the possibility of a chain reaction as in nitrogen tri-iodide.

While we are arguing about this, accept that classical Brownian motion makes an adequate representation of quantum mechanics for the purpose of thermodynamics. If we burst a diaphragm which separates a gas from a vacuum, or we pull out a piston at hypersonic speed, we damage the universe in a way which is irreversible. The proposed simple model of quantum mechanics can deal with this.

Well what is the actual physics that is occurring is this related to 1/f nioise what observable physics

We need a theory which will allow a computer simulation to deal with Bell's Theorem. I suggest that spooky action at a distance equates to natural Vernam cipher. I also suggest that the sort of activity associated with the violation of Bell's inequalities is strictly orthogonal to the activity associated with the Schroedinger equation, which cannot be modified. Whether or not my computer simulation will work remains to be seen. The Courant-Friedrichs-Levy condition won't be easy to deal with. In the meantime we do have a reasonable theory of thermodynamics.

A merit of computer simulation is that we can explore situations with antimatter. A demerit could be the requirement for an exponential-time algorithm.

That is this specific to brown noise random walk Brownium motion the second law issue

Dear Casper

For me this is the key question

I am a soil-water physicist and for a long time we use the Gibbs free energy and its total partial derivative (function of (T, P and masses of constituents) as the fundamental concept deriving from the 2 laws of thermodynamics. Recently I published an article showing that we (scientists) have to reconsider the definition of "system" in thermodynamics, which is at for the moment at the basis of all speculations made in this fundamental science including the notions of temperature, entropy, pressure chemical potential, intensive and extensive variables etc. Defining first the system as a hierarchical arrangement of delimited organizational volumes, I was able to redefine exactly what are the thermodynamic variables used for the appropriate hydro-functional level of organization. The principal result is that the two laws are physically explained, instead to be a basis for all thermodynamics reasoning, and I could correct the Gibbs equations and the well known Gibbs-Duhem equation. I used these results to solve a secular problem in soil water physics which is the water movement in the soil medium submitted to water evaporation from its surface. The new systemic thermodynamics is defined from the assembly of phases (air, liquid, solids) level down to the atomic level.

The two papers are in my researchgate page:

"Systemic Modelling of Soil Water Thermodynamics under Natural Conditions of Air Temperature and Pressure"

and

"Hydrostructural Pedology, Culmination of the Systemic Approach of the Natural Environment"

Philosophically, the conclusion should be "the system owns to men as organization owns to God"

Dear Mr. Erik Braudeau,

When you would have done the same thought experiment as I did, in which the working medium (solid, liquid, gas, multiphase) of a certain time-variant phenomenon was separated into small volume elements (about 1 nm^3 of a fixed number of atoms/molecules) with certain thermal expansion properties and thermal diffusion properties (heat conduction) but WITHOUT viscosity properties and you had also continuously tracked all those volume elements during a full cycle of the complete system, you would probably have seen the same as I saw. Then you would probably have also concluded that the current Navier-Stokes equation is incorrect in terms of viscosity.

My reference would presumably be to Heisenberg's original paper on the Uncertainty Principle. With the collision of two molecules of a gas, small errors in the specification of the initial conditions lead to large errors in the position of the molecules after a collision. After subsequent collisions the ability to predict the position of the molecules vanishes. Mathematicians call this non-integrability.

We could try this out as a computer simulation, though the desktop computer I have here is not powerful enough. Obviously my gas is monatomic (gamma=1.67) but I would expect a demonstration of the basics of thermodynamics.

If something is divided up into small volume elements in a computer simulation, then a type of viscosity is being introduced which sets an upper limit on the Reynolds number that the simulation can deal with. It's nothing to do with the correctness or otherwise of the Navier-Stokes equations. We can get around this using vortex methods, which was the subject of my PhD Thesis.

Dear Casper A. Helder

Yes, we found that the Navier-Stokes equation applied to the liquid phase of the soil medium submitted to surface evaporation but only to the inter-aggregate liquid phase and without the viscosity term. In fact, there is simultaneously an (thermodynamic) equilibrium between this phase and the intra-aggregate liquid phase that can be confused with a viscosity effect.

I am following the discussion with sincere interest and excitement!

To my regret, the overwhelming most of the colleagues do shift either into maths or into computer simulations - without addressing the actual PHYSICS of the law we are discussing here.

It is about two days ago that I have told this here to the esteemed audience.

We live without feeling the thermodynamics around us.

University lectures, handbooks all over the world do force us into accepting the IMPLICIT notion of Entropy.

Thump the table in protest, and the kinetic energy of your fist is dissipated in heat. Something definitely irreversible has happened. There might be a physical process which can capture some of the heat and turn it back into work, and if you are very lucky you might recover all the work, though only a 10% recovery is more likely. You can never recover more work than the initial investment. That's the Second Law.

Here is my derivation from your discuss Given the discussion on the uncertainty principle we have

DE Dt >= h/2

we can connect energy with free energy F or entropy S then we can say

DS Dt T>= h/2

where t= time and T=temperature and h is hbar

thus we see that we can define an uncertainty in entropy at a given temperature which is of the order in the uncertainty of the knowledge that the second law for the amount of time that we can assert the law or likewise be uncertain of the law

hope that helps

A heuristic way of looking at things is to say that in a computer simulation where entropy is expected to increase, we need a way to destroy information. Adding some Brownian motion does the job. Letting Brownian motion interact with chaotic dynamics does it much more rapidly, so this is not just a Monte Carlo method. After reading Reinhold Furth's 1933 paper it is an obvious step to suggest that the scale of the Uncertainty Principle associated with added classical Brownian motion should be the same as the scale of the quantum mechanical Uncertainty Principle.

The converse of this is that if we switch off the random number generator and pull a piston at supersonic speed on our simulated gas, then we should be able to see the Poincare cycle. Unfortunately numerical truncation errors could spoil things. We should undertake a few studies with quadruple precision arithmetic, lots of iterations to convergence on our time-reversible numerical integration, and just a few atoms to see if we can find any hint of the Poincare cycle.

Yes to brownium motion and quantum noise via uncertainties in entropy and thus 2ndc law via the uncertainty principle

I don't know if anyone has done that comparison. Once any degree of randomness is admitted, we have a lot of latitude about its magnitude. We are going to see much the same thing in a computer simulation for variations over several orders of magnitude. The basic issue as a computer simulator is that I need to have some idea of why my simulation is not that of a superfluid, and why it does not just show a short-period Poincare cycle. Relying upon the limited precision of my computer's arithmetic is not an acceptable answer.

Planck's constant would be a natural scale on which to draw the boxes for Boltzmann's H-theorem.

Well yes but the de Boglie wavelength is just associated with quantum particle with mass wave-particle dual stuff. The bigger picture you might like is that this is a type of quantum noise that is in all electronics. Voltage and current fluctuations. Check out jitter and phase noise is actually frequency instability I have some article on entropy as a source for 1/f noise if interested

my papers on this (ieeexplore and preprints if you need)

1/f Phase Noise in Oscillators Modeled with Q and Its Entropy Origin

and

Origin of l/f Noise-Active Degradation Generating Entropy

I might add that if we have some gas in a cylinder with a heavy steel piston, a mercury thermometer and a pressure gauge, then the last three objects are all normally heavier than the Planck mass and chemically stable. Since their Compton wavelength is shorter than the Planck length the Schrodinger equation is meaningless. They are still subject to an Uncertainty Principle so by elimination it has to be a classical Uncertainty Principle based on ordinary Brownian motion.

If we want to model this by computer simulation, then classical Brownian motion is representative of quantum mechanics for the gas molecules, but for the moving piston it is actual quantum mechanics. The interaction of two different types of Brownian motion is what normally constitutes making an observation.

There is an abnormal case with alpha particles and nitrogen tri-iodide but that is tangential to this forum's subject.

My identification of quantum mechanics with classical Brownian motion for thermodynamic purposes is not quite stating the obvious.

Yes I think quantum thermodynamics applied to Browning motion and in general quantum noise is novel area and

DSDt T >= h/2 applies

In heuristic terms, Maxwell's demon is engaged in an activity which is like trying to decode the Vernam cipher, and won't be getting any salary from me.

well Maxwell didnt have a quantum door to demonize

“solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations often include turbulence, which remains one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics, despite its immense importance in science and engineering.” Quote (1)

………………………..

Dear David Porthouse,

Thank you for your meaningful contribution. Regarding your posts about computer simulation of fluid flow, thumping the table and electricity I would like to answer you more detailed.

CAN THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS BE ABANDONED?

I don't think it is the mission of any scientist or thermodynamics expert to spend his/her precious time and cognitive skills trying to give up this law. However, during my extensive research on fluid flow with heat transfer involved, I (and other independent experts too), came across several fundamental contradictions within analysis methods based on the second law of thermodynamics (entropy). Therefore this law must be questioned; the global energy system relies on this law. I have written a white paper titled “unacceptable: the Second law of Thermodynamics” (2) and introduced #fixthermodynamics to gain some attention for this topic.

EXCITING PERIOD

You may have come to the same conclusion as I that, A) current thermodynamics provides limited answers, and B) it seems that different revolutionary new insights have “recently” emerged that offer new and more advanced answers to physical phenomena. This last comment is supported (among others) by the contributions of Erik Braudeau (3), Evgeni Starikov (4), in this and in other discussion groups of relevance and interest and by other contributions/articles (5) including those of the author (6).

Without claiming to have a complete theoretical proof (or even having a complete explanation) I think my views seem related to the ideas and explanations of the mentioned works from Erik Braudeau and Evgeni Starikov. In short, all those so-called alternative thermodynamic views provide alternative in depth explanations of irreversibility and touch on the second law of thermodynamics within classical mechanics. Thermodynamic irreversibility was an almost unexplored scientific field compared to its relevance. Until recently (independently) several experts with similar alternative views, insights and theoretical analysis of advanced non-equilibrium thermodynamics met and exchanged their views.

I gained my views by an alternative method of observing physical phenomena with phenomenological non-equilibrium thermodynamics; seemingly also applied by other researchers. My so-called alternative method of observing can be considered as a combination of multiscale multiphysics modelling and causal analysis (7) led to remarkable outcomes (6). Possibly a kind of similar alternative method of observing seems to be explained in the work of Erik Braudeau “Systemic modeling up to the atomic level” (3). Also Evgeni Starikov seems to apply an alternative analysing method “dive into the microscopic (hidden) factors underlying the macroscopic observations” (Energetics) from understanding his work (4). Without claiming these works are similar, nor that it is a complete overview, I have simply grouped them as “Thermodynamic Relativity” / “Thermodynamic Unification” or simply as “Advanced Thermodynamics”. Advanced thermodynamics is about thermodynamic observations in multiscale space and time dimensions.

CFD IS EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE

As I'm no practicing scientist nor theoretical physicist I will try to explain my comment “Then you would probably have also concluded that the current Navier-Stokes equation is incorrect in terms of viscosity.” according to what is commonly known as phenomenological thermodynamics. And I will try to answer your comment “If something is divided up into small volume elements in a computer simulation….”.

I assume one can consider Computational Fluid Dynamics (8) to be equal to computer simulation of small volume elements. Indeed, modern CFD is able to accurately predict fluid flow in all types of flow patterns and a wide range of Reynold numbers. Although CFD brought enhanced technologies, it didn’t give us more basic knowledge of fluid flow. CFD is just an empiric method which is commonly used as trial and error.

Modern CFD applies relatively large volume elements compared to what is proposed by Erik Braudeau (atomair/moleculair) and me as necessary scale (

Dear Casper A. Helder

My warm thanks for this review

W.M.

Casper A. Helder

I'm guessing you are concerned with the word 'Law'. The so-called 'laws of physics', are the best descriptions of the behaviour of matter that we have. They are based both on pure logic (please look again in detail at Sadi Carnot), and practical experience. If you quote; "get rid of the second law of thermodynamics", all things will continue as before, but you will no longer have a way of describing them!

In order to show the second law is wrong, you would have to demonstrate that the mathematical equations of Sadi Carnot, and the Clausius statement do not predict the observations made on the behaviour of your device.