The second law and statistical mechanics. (English) Zbl 1219.80003
Beretta, Gian Paolo (ed.) et al., Meeting the entropy challenge. An international thermodynamics symposium in honor and memory of Professor Joseph H. Keenan, Cambridge, MA, USA, October 4–5, 2007. Melville, NY: American Institute of Physics (AIP) (ISBN 978-0-7354-0557-8/hbk). AIP Conference Proceedings 1033, 55-65 (2008).
The lecture of Bedeaux on the “Second law of thermodynamics” followed by the discussions by the imminent thermodynamists is very interesting. In the final equilibrium state, the entropy either increases or remains the same relative to the previous equilibrium state. Boltzmann’s H-theorem, however, proves that the entropy will increase continuously as a function of time during the intermediate out of equilibrium state and thus it sets an open challenge to look for a satisfactory answer. In fact, the definition of the entropy \(dS = \delta Q/T\) is false as the term (\(\delta Q /ds\)) does not denote the total derivative of \(Q\) with respect to \(S\) in the mathematical sense.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1193.00061].
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1193.00061].
Reviewer: K. N. Shukla (Gurgaon)
MSC:
| 80A05 | Foundations of thermodynamics and heat transfer |
| 80-03 | History of classical thermodynamics |
| 01A60 | History of mathematics in the 20th century |
| 01A55 | History of mathematics in the 19th century |
