[Fis] Fwd: Entropy, the Second Law, and Life
Pedro C. Marijuan
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
Wed Jan 13 14:18:07 CET 2021
Dear Arieh and FIS Colleagues,
Again, regarding the interpretation of entropy as information or
uncertainty (respect locations & momenta), my suggestion is that we
should call "something else" to the extensive magnitude we are
measuring. Otherwise, we easily give room to all those
pseudo-interpretations you wonderfully describe and the general
confusion with information. When I was teaching a bio-discipline for
engineer students, I was using the term "freedom". You are measuring the
degrees of freedom of the system, I was telling, how much they have
changed either increasing or decreasing along the process. And that
quantity of degrees of freedom when multiplied by the temperature gives
the energy gained or lost via entropy change. So, the application of SMI
to the system what tells us is about the degrees of freedom statistical
measurement. In short: the new freedom status of the system. It may not
be a terrific theoretical interpretation, but my students loved it (I
confess that previously I was using Lambert's "dispersal", until I saw
your criticisms in the web).
All of this is well depicted in Gibbs' formula for the free energy of
chemical reactions, with the part due to ENTHALPY change (basically
internal energy), and the part due to ENTROPY change x Temp. Given than
most biological --all!-- occur to room temperature (or far lower), the
resulting contribution of entropy is pretty moderate. Actually I was
checking chemical tables of many biological reactions, and the
contribution of entropy was generally an order of magnitude lower than
enthalpy--around 10% or less. I wonder --following Howard's comment days
ago-- all the obsession with entropy and the universal neglect of
enthalpy. It is enthalpy (or internal energy, or free energy) the big
concern of all biological systems, "the food of today", rather than the
negentropy or low entropy you graciously comment.
I had also a comment regarding Joseph's and Jerry's on Pauli Exclusion
Principle, but better for another day.
Best wishes to all--Pedro
El 08/01/2021 a las 19:22, Arieh Ben-Naim escribió:
> Dear Pedro and everyone else interested.
>
> I will briefly answer your questions, as I have discussed these in
> more details in my previews publications.
> Regarding the interpretation of entropy as a measure of information
> and as uncertainty.
> In my view these are the only valid interpretations of entropy,
> provided that one specifies information about what, and uncertainty
> with respect to what. Both of these are discussed in my book on
> “Information Theory” and in “Entropy: the Greatest Blunder in the
> History of Science.”
>
> Regarding the question of dimensions for entropy, I have also
> discussed that in my book on “Farewell to 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”
> 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 (in both cases the information and
> uncertainty with respect to the distribution of locations and momenta
> of all particles of the system at equilibrium)
>
> In my recent book I have criticized both Shermer’s and Pinker’s
> misuses of the concept of entropy in their books.
>
> I hope I have answered your questions, though very briefly.
> Best regards
> Arieh
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 15:40 Pedro C. Marijuan
> <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>> wrote:
>
> Dear Arieh & FISers,
>
> My appreciation for your elegant and lively contribution. Reading
> about
> labeling the food on their "negentropy content" or advising on low
> entropy food (icy water!) was a most humorous way to criticize all
> the
> nonsense and "mystical mystery tours" around entropy. Particularly,
> Atkins (& Dawkins) quasi-religious views have always been
> unswallowable
> for me. Anyhow, two further aspects I would like to hear from you.
>
> First, to put it most briefly, what basic, visual image would you
> convey
> for an intuitive understanding of entropy beyond the technicality of
> SMI? Uncertainty, chaos, disorder, diffusion, dispersal... some many
> terms around! I could see years ago some heated exchanges you had
> with
> Frank Lambert, the champion of entropy as energy dispersal. There is
> also a longish comment on how Steven Pinker approaches
> entropy-information-evolution-cognition as the four fundamental
> concepts
> in our scientific understanding of the world. He is wrong (IMO) in
> all
> of them! Although it he is an extraordinary social psychologist the
> basic sci. background he proposes is tainted. If we could give a more
> sound "tetrad" even with those same concepts, it would be a great
> outcome. Clarifying entropy in all aspects we could advance would a
> terrific step.
>
> And second (maybe to be discussed later on) do you accept
> "dimensions"
> for entropy? The units of jules/degreeK aren't they derived from
> having
> entered the Boltzmann's constant? Why do we need at all separate
> units
> for temperature and energy?
>
> Thanks for all the exchanges so far!
>
> Best--Pedro
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
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> --
> Prof. Arieh Ben-Naim
> Department of Physical Chemistry
> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
> Jerusalem, 91904
> Israel
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-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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