Hi Eric, I officially give up. Thanks all for your help. Even though I still don't feel comfortable with entropy, I have learned an enormous amount along the way. For the purposes of meteorology, I think I can say simply that the "entropy of a parcel is the Kelvin temperature it retains after one has mathematically removed the effects of the compression exerted on it by the parcels above it."
Immediately that I quit I was overwhelmed by sheer arrogance of what I was trying to do. Thank you all for your patience and forbearance. In few minutes I will send, just in case anybody is curious, what I did manage to get done. It is remarkably little. Nick On Fri, Aug 1, 2025 at 3:43 PM Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear Colleagues, > > You would think, .... . But no. > > I am planning to complete my "report" on entropy in the next few days and > put it behind me as best I can. I will send you a copy for giggles. > > In the meantime, I would like to explore a thought which Eric S offered me > several weeks ago which has continued to echo in my head like wolf howls in > a box canyon. It was something like, "entropy does not appear in the > monotonic idea gas equation because it is the landscape that determines the > shape of that equation" Please forgive the misattribution, EricS. I have > been struggling to come up with a metametaphor by which to understand this > aphorism and it be something like gravity does not appear in > calculations of travel time from here to chicago. I am tempted to say > something like, "Instead of heat flowing down a temperature slope as Carnot > would have it, we have energy flowing down an entropy slope." I am giving > you all a chance to pre-box my ears for saying it. > > Nick > -- > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology > Clark University > [email protected] > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson > -- Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology Clark University [email protected] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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