Quick Post on the Second Law of Thermodynamics
I had a physics professor in college who told our class, “When most people go to Germany they tend to take river cruises and drink white wine. Physicists visit Boltzmann’s grave.”
I hadn’t thought about this statement in a very long time, until just now when I happened to run across this photo of . . . you guessed it.
Boltzmann was best known for his statistical explanation of the second law of thermodynamics, which he expressed in the elegant equation that you see at the top of the monument.
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that entropy (randomness, chaos) never decreases in a closed system. Boltzmann explained this in an entirely new, and more precise way, in his equation that says that entropy is proportional to the logarithm of the number of different states that a closed system can find itself in.
OK, plenty of that. If I may be allowed a bit of gallows humor, a textbook chapter on this subject begins,
“Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying Statistical Mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study Statistical Mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously.”
Is someone trying to tell me that parents are prevented from knowing what their children are being taught in school?
What this gentleman needs to understand is that:
It would be great if we could pull off what Harrison Ford is suggesting i.e., that our leaders believe in science and create policy that is informed accordingly. The problem is that our elections here in the United States are bought with extreme sums of money that are directed towards convincing massive numbers of poorly informed Americans that a certain candidate offers them solutions to their main concerns in life.
The drawing here reminds me of a kid I tutored who introduced himself as follows, “Hi, Mr. Shields. I’m Andy. I hate math and it hates me.”
I could be wrong, but I believe that Trump has made at least some of his picks simply to create outrage.
A reader asks: We seem to overuse the word “very.” Can you comment on that?
The problem is that it doesn’t matter what you would rather have.
Is the fast-food franchisee here improving his relationship with his community / customer base with this sign?
Seriously? The author of the meme here must be putting me on. He “can’t explain it?” “Things just don’t feel right?”
