[Fis] Fwd: Entropy, the Second Law, and Life

[Arieh Ben-Naim]

Dear Jerry,
I will not elaborate on the  words “accident” and “special” since I have
discussed that in details in several books.
Regarding your two assertions about “If entropy... then....chemical
thermodynamics and the law of mass action,”
that is not true.
Note that in chemical thermodynamics the central quantity is the chemical
potential, and this contains T and S. Therefore, whatever the dimensions of
the entropy are, the product of T and S will have the dimensions of energy.
Therefore the two assertions are erroneous.
Best
Arieh

On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 21:35 Arieh Ben-Naim <ariehbennaim at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 21:16 Jerry LR Chandler <
> jerry_lr_chandler at icloud.com> wrote:
>
>> Arieh, FISers:
>>
>> First, a general comment. While I concur with the broad outline of the
>> assertions about the nature of entropy as a thermodynamic concept of
>> “heat”, I have many many reservations about the assertions of the
>> connections between the historical concept of entropy with the nature of
>> natural entities, the nature of the natural sciences and the mathematics of
>> natural systems. The narrow lens of physical chemistry blurs the fine
>> structures of the logics of nature intimately tied to electrical phenomena
>> associated with the table of physical/chemical elements.  If time permits,
>> I will post more later on some of these issues.  Today, I will only comment
>> on the completeness of the logic of thermodynamics.
>>
>> On Jan 8, 2021, at 12:22 PM, Arieh Ben-Naim <ariehbennaim at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Regarding the question of dimensions for entropy,
>> In my view this is a result of historical “accident” that temperature was
>> given a special dimensions that were not used before in physics:”degrees”
>>
>>
>> I was under the impression that the system of physical units, developed
>> over the past two centuries by the universe of the physical scientific
>> community, was logically and mathematically consistent with machines.  I
>> presume that this consistency contributed to the applications to steam
>> engines, as well as to Einstein’s “blessing” of TD.
>> These antecedent concepts raise questions about the meaning of the
>> preceding sentence. Please clarify the meanings of the term “accident” and
>> “special” within the context of the various scientific disciplines.
>>
>> If temperature was given the dimensions of energy, then entropy would
>> become dimensionless. This would ease the acceptance of the only correct
>> interpretation of entropy either as a measure of information or a measure
>> of uncertainty.
>>
>>
>> What are erroneous about the following assertions:
>> “If entropy was dimensionless, it would not be related to chemical
>> thermodynamics.”
>> “If entropy was dimensionless, thermodynamics would not be related to
>> general law of mass action which connects chemical transformations
>> (equations) to dynamics.”
>>
>> I pose these questions because of the third law of thermodynamics.
>>
>> My intuition suggests to me that somehow, someway, some vague philosophy
>> of rejection of the first principles of physics underly this essay.
>> This hunch is probably erroneous, but it may stimulate others to think
>> about the many radical assertions presented in this essay.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
> Prof. Arieh Ben-Naim
> Department of Physical Chemistry
> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
> Jerusalem, 91904
> Israel
>
-- 
Prof. Arieh Ben-Naim
Department of Physical Chemistry
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, 91904
Israel
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