Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced to Plain Common Sense

Preface......Page 10
Program 1: Binary dice......Page 24
Program 5: Simulation of mixing two ideal gases......Page 25
Program 7: Generating the normal distribution......Page 26
1.1. The Non-Atomistic Formulation of the Second Law......Page 32
1.2. The Atomistic Formulation of the Second Law......Page 40
2 A Brief Introduction to Probability Theory, Information Theory, and all the Rest......Page 50
2.1. The Classical Definition......Page 62
2.2. The Relative Frequency Definition......Page 64
2.3. Independent Events and Conditional Probability......Page 68
2.4.1. Conditional probability and subjective probability......Page 73
2.4.2. Conditional probability and cause and effect......Page 77
2.4.3. Conditional probability and joint probability......Page 80
2.5. A Teaspoon of Information Theory......Page 82
2.6. A Tip of a Teaspoon of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry......Page 91
2.7. A Matter of Lottery......Page 98
2.8. A Matter of Order-Disorder......Page 100
2.9. A Challenging Problem......Page 101
2.10.1. Answers to the roulette problems......Page 104
2.10.2. Answer to “a matter of lottery”......Page 105
2.10.3. Answer to “a matter of order-disorder”......Page 106
2.10.4. Answer to “a challenging problem”......Page 107
3.1. One Die......Page 109
3.2. Two Dice......Page 110
3.3. Three Dice......Page 115
3.4. Four Dice and More......Page 117
4 Let’s Play with Simpli.ed Dice and have a Preliminary Grasp of the Second Law......Page 123
4.1. Two Dice; N = 2......Page 126
4.2. Four Dice; N = 4......Page 129
4.3. Ten Dice; N = 10......Page 131
4.4. Hundred Dice; N = 100......Page 137
4.5. Thousand Dice; N = 1000......Page 139
4.6. Ten Thousand Dice; N = 104 and Beyond......Page 141
5 Experience the Second Law with all Your Five Senses......Page 147
5.1. See it with your Visual Sense......Page 148
5.2. Smell it with your Olfactory Sense......Page 150
5.3. Taste it with your Gustatory Sense......Page 153
5.4. Hear it with your Auditory Sense......Page 154
5.5. Feel it with your Touch (Tactile) Sense......Page 156
6 Finally, Grasp it with Your Common Sense......Page 160
7 Translating from the Dice-World to the Real World......Page 177
7.1. The Correspondence with the Expansion Process......Page 178
7.2. The Correspondence with the Deassimilation Process......Page 188
7.3. Summary of the Evolution of the System towards the Equilibrium State......Page 195
7.4. Mixing of Three Components......Page 203
7.5. Heat Transfer from a Hot to a Cold Gas......Page 205
7.6. Test Your Understanding of the Second Law......Page 211
8 Re.ections on the Status of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a Law of Physics......Page 217
8.1. What is the Source of the Mystery?......Page 220
8.2. The Association of Entropy with “Disorder”......Page 227
8.3. The Association of Entropy with Missing Information......Page 230
8.4. Is the Second Law Intimately Associated with the Arrow of Time?......Page 239
8.5. Is the Second Law of Thermodynamics a Law of Physics?......Page 244
8.6. Can We Do Away with the Second Law?......Page 247
References and Suggested Reading......Page 250
Index......Page 254