Theorie Kolloquium | May 25, 16:30
The terroristic nimbus of entropy - on the history of thermodynamics
The development of thermodynamics in the second half of the
19th century has had a strong impact on both technology and
natural philosophy.
It is true that the steam engine for the conversion of heat
into work existed before thermodynamics was developed as a
branch of physics. However, the systematic theory improved
the conversion process, and it succeeded in developing other
processes essential to modern life, notably refrigeration and
rectification. So, altogether thermodynamics has provided
humanity with cheap energy, and cheap fuel, - consequently
with cheap, and abundant, and unspoiled food. Thus
thermodynamics has made populations grow, and life expectancy
increase beyond anything people could possibly have imagined
200 years ago.
At the same time thermodynamics has uncovered the precarious
balance between determinism and stochasticity which is essential
to processes on earth, including life. The competition of those
intentions is described by the doctrine of energy and entropy
in thermodynamics; energy tends to force a system into one
single state, and entropy tends to spread the system evenly
over all possible states. These competing tendencies are weighed by
temperature such that minimal energy determines cold systems and
maximal entropy determines hot systems.
TU Berlin
Seminarraum Theoretische Physik
Contact: not specified