Robert! Thanks for the suggestions.
The metaphor I am currently working on is of a well used chisel. Its tip has been smeared out by the work it has done. The big news for me here is hearing from you. I have missed your "voice"!!! Where are you, what are you doing, and what have you become? I, too, have stopped coming to Fizical Friam, partly because I can't hear for shit and partly because of lingering covid/flu fears. I do Phake Phriam or Thuam as we call it, from time to time. ARe you within reach of a cup of coffee? Or have you repatriated and are now spinning out code from the back of some London Pub. Nick On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 7:59 AM Robert Holmes <rholme...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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/ > -- Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology Clark University nthomp...@clarku.edu https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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