Thanks Sarbajit, George and I have been working on a way of understanding this asymmetry which is kinda neat. Here is George's summary of our conversation. The gist of it is that while you can bring chambers to the same temperature by heating and compressing, they are in different macrostates because aside effect of compression is an increase in density which heating does not produce. See: https://chatgpt.com/canvas/shared/6865db6493e88191a9023926478b3c01
Nick On Thu, Jul 3, 2025 at 4:08 PM Sarbajit Roy <[email protected]> wrote: > It has been a very long time (too long) since I studied the 2nd law or > Shannon. It's all very veiled and foggy just now, however, I have often > wondered if Entropy is fundamentally about ignorance, correlations, or > something deeper? > > On Thu, Jul 3, 2025 at 11:47 PM Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Dear Long Suffering Friamers >> >> I think I have now managed to come up with a macrostate statement of a >> phenomenon that requires entropy for its understanding. It parallels >> Lincoln's aphorism about fooling all of the people. >> >> *Assuming friction free and quasistatic motion and total insulation where >> appropriate:* >> >> *If you put a bunch of energy into a system by working on it,**you can >> recover all that energy as work.* >> >> *If you put a bunch of energy into a system by heating it,**you can >> recover all that energy as heating,* >> >> *If you put a bunch of energy into a system by working on it,** you can >> recover all that energy as heating.* >> >> *But if you put a bunch of energy into a system by heating, you can NOT >> recover all of that energy as work. * >> >> I think this is the asymmetry that requires the invention of entropy. >> >> Am I finally getting my Dux in a row? >> >> Nick >> >> -- >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology >> Clark University >> [email protected] >> 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 [email protected] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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