Personally, I found it easier to learn about entropy by starting from thermodynamics and then later trying to grok the statistical mechanical perspective. Maybe start with a good thermodynamics textbook? A couple of popular science options are Hanlon’s *Block by Block* and Atkins’ *Thermodynamics* in the *Very Short Introduction* series. If you want something with more teeth, try Steane’s *Thermodynamics: **A Complete Undergraduate Course*. I particularly like his financial analogy: being given $1 as a dollar bill versus as 100 cents hidden around your house. It’s completely equivalent from a first-law perspective, not so much from a second-law perspective.
Cheers, —Robert On Sat, Dec 28, 2024 at 4:14 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: > FWIW, I have been struggling with the concept of entropy for the last > month. One of the puzzles was why entropy increased with addition of heat. > I bullied George for a few hours and he finally admitted not only that the > mean and variance of the B-distribution are correlated, but that its > variance is the square of its mean. Why that is the case is beyond both > of us. > > He also coughed up eventually the reason that adiabatic compression and > decompression don't alter entropy: there is a trade off between spatial > constraint and kinetic energy such that as the gas is confined its kinetic > energy goes up and with that a compensating increase in the variance of > the KE. > > Yeah. I know. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread. > > N > > -- > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology > Clark University > nthomp...@clarku.edu > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
