Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: Pentcho Valev on 30/06/2006 07:28:13
-
Roughly speaking, modern science is based on two premises:
1. The speed of light is constant, independent of the relative speed of the light source and the observer.
2. The entropy is a state function.
The importance of the first premise is correctly expressed by late Bryan Wallace:
http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
"Shatter this postulate [of constancy of the speed of light], and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce!"
The importance of the second premise is even greater - just try to imagine modern science where all statements involving the concept of entropy are absurd. Yet the premise "Entropy is a state function" has no serious justification. The proof offered by Clausius is based on the assumption "A general cycle can be divided into small Carnot cycles" which is almost obviously wrong. Thermodynamicists know that and have adopted a specific tactic: they have repeated "Entropy is a state function", "Entropy is a state function" etc. for more than a century and the truth has become self-evident.
Pentcho Valev
-
Science is a practical subject and most scientific equations get their credibility from the fact that they work as a predictor of what will happen when you perform certain experiments. Einsteins equations did not in any way destroy Newtons. They just added a small correction that has to be made when more extreme conditions than normal are encountered.
To believe that the finding of a slight deviation from the constancy of the velocity of light or some small inconsistency in entropy functions will in any way destroy any science that has gone before is naive and stupid and betrays a total lack of understanding of what science is all about.
Learn, create, test and tell
evolution rules in all things
God says so!
-
Science is a practical subject and most scientific equations get their credibility from the fact that they work as a predictor of what will happen when you perform certain experiments. Einsteins equations did not in any way destroy Newtons. They just added a small correction that has to be made when more extreme conditions than normal are encountered.
To believe that the finding of a slight deviation from the constancy of the velocity of light or some small inconsistency in entropy functions will in any way destroy any science that has gone before is naive and stupid and betrays a total lack of understanding of what science is all about.
Learn, create, test and tell
evolution rules in all things
God says so!
-
quote:
Originally posted by Soul Surfer
Science is a practical subject and most scientific equations get their credibility from the fact that they work as a predictor of what will happen when you perform certain experiments. Einsteins equations did not in any way destroy Newtons. They just added a small correction that has to be made when more extreme conditions than normal are encountered.
To believe that the finding of a slight deviation from the constancy of the velocity of light or some small inconsistency in entropy functions will in any way destroy any science that has gone before is naive and stupid and betrays a total lack of understanding of what science is all about.
Learn, create, test and tell
evolution rules in all things
God says so!
MALIGNANT ENTROPY GROWTH IN EINSTEIN'S ZOMBIE WORLD
The era of Postscientism started in 1850 when Clausius scored a decisive victory over human rationality: he made the world believe that the prototype of the second law of thermodynamics - all heat engines working between the same two temperatures have the same maximal efficiency - was a corollary of the triviality "heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold". Fifteen years later Clausius struck again: this time he convinced the world that something called entropy was a state function which always increased. The jubilation was enormous and eternal - the longevity of the concept of entropy will certainly surpass that of Aristotelian concept of entelechy.
Still in about 2500 years a historian of science will bump into the following ancient text:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/00/engtot.pdf
"A more important objection it seems to me, is that Clausius based his conclusion that the entropy increases in a nicht umkehrbar [irreversible] process on the assumption that such a process can be closed by an umkehrbar [reversible] process to become a cycle.....But the assumption is far from obvious...."
Then the concept of entropy will be rejected and replaced with some better concept. (Never abandon a theory if you cannot replace it with a better one.)
Pentcho Valev
-
I will move this over to new theories...
-
Well, most people have some weired understanding about entropy. And most of the time they talk about it without understanding what entropy really is. Read this for a basic understanding: http://physics.thinkingpal.com/a-simple-and-short-explanation-of-entropy/