Energy and Entropy LO28593

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 05/24/02


Replying to LO28582 --

Dear Organlearners,

Dan Chay <chay@alaska.com> writes:

>Thanks, At. More and more, I am enjoying benefits of
>the axiom "to learn is to create," and find myself applying
>myself creatively to make my tacit understandings explicit.
>Right now, I feel strongly that I want and need to digest
>on physical world calculations to improve my understanding.

Greetings dear Dan,

What you have written here is almost as if Goethe would write it two
centuries ago! You know what is the spirit of authentic learning!

>In the interim, I have continued to think about this. I also
>have a Physics textbook (1970) that I have digested on.

I like that (1970). Try to get one from (1960) and one from (1980) at a
2nd hand book shop.

>Yes, I can see "work" as the ordered flow of energy.
>It's more energy itself, about which I lack sureness, I
>think. As a calculation, I think I'm beginning to recognize
>simply that I must be comfortable knowing that I can
>calculate/infer it using different methods.

Dan, perhaps you are more sure than the book, but willing to
scrutinise your own knowing once again. Consider any form
of work. Let the extensive parameter be X and the intensive
parameter be Y. The formula to measure and calculate that
kind of work will then be Yx/_\X. Many physicists will say that
that this kind of work will bring a change /_\ in the total energy
E about. In other words, they write:
/_\E = Yx/_\X
(change in total energy) = (flow of work)

I try to think more carefully so as not to get caught up in my own
ignorance. This Yx/_\X traces the change in free energy /_\F. In a
reversible world
/_\F = Yx/_\X
but in an irreversible world
/_\F < Yx/_\X
The free energy F is part of the total energy E in the following manner
E = O + F
(total energy) = (energy locked in organisation) + (free energy)
Now, think of this equation applied to the very change which lead to
/_\F. In other words, think of
/_\E = /_\O + /_\F
If there is no change in the organisation, then the energy O locked up
in organisation stays the same. This means /_\O = 0. Hence
/_\E = /_\F
so that by way of
/_\F = Yx/_\X
they arrive at
/_\E = Yx/_\X

Did you follow the reasoning Dan? They ought to have assumed
/_\O = 0, i.e., there is no change in organisation within the system.
But by their ignorance to organisational changes within the system
they effectively make /_\O = 0. You have all the right in the world
to feel unsure what total energy E is!

>For example:
>
>E = mC^2
>
>But I wonder, how did Einstein organize his thinking to
>come up with this equation, and .....

This is a great question. Einstein had not even the slightest suspicion
that his organised thinking will lead to it. He thought as follows (and I
will articulate it creatively ;-) Nature can communicate with itself
through various kind of flowing signals. The fastest among them all is
light (electromagnetic radiation). So light is the cardinal mouthpiece
("umlomo") letting one point in space and time commute with another point
in space and time. Light makes nature whole.

The next step was to accept a controversial empirical fact. The
Michelson-Morley experiment seems to have indicated that the
speed of light remains the same whether the observer moves
towards the light or away from it. So, accept this fact irrespective
of how controversial it is and trace with the mind its consquences.
Explore the wholeness in the associative pattern
space-time-point(1) * light * space-time-point(2)
where light as "umlomo" speaks the same everywhere-in-everygoing.
With this kind of thinking he arrived at a four dimensional geometry
looking just like the one which Lorentz arrived at some dozen years
earlier, but reasoming from a different viewpoint.

Excitedly, he realised that the this geometry may be used to explore
Newtonian mechanics anew. Since the velocity of light speaks the
same everywhere-in-everygoing, what in Newtonian mechanics might
also speak the same everywhere-in-everygoing. What about its very
laws which proved to be so successful? Aha, their form has to stay
the same everywhere-in-everygoing -- the principle of relativity. So
he began to apply these laws in this strange space-time geometry.
After a page or so of maths done logically, out pops the equation
E = MxC^2
Uh-huh? Hmmm!

(>But I wonder, how did Einstein organize his thinking to)
(>come up with this equation, and .....)
>...accept that there might be some other things.

Strange as this equation is, it helped physicists to understand something
else about the masses of atoms. For example, the sodium Na(24) isotope has
exactly 1 neutron more than the sodium Na(23) isotope. Yet the mass of
Na(23) plus the mass of one neutron is not equal to the mass of Na (24),
but more than it. Some mass got lost when a neutron combines with a Na(23)
nucleus to form a Na(24) nucleus. This loss of mass was nothing else than
the conversion of it into gamma rays ("light" with very high energy, yet
the same velocity C).

>what does it say? Energy is directly proportional to mass.
>That is, I guess, we can infer and calculate energy (ability to
>do work) if we can measure mass. Does it matter whether
>the system is close to equilibrium or far regarding this equation?

All theory, this E = MxC^2 stuff. Then came WWII. And some scientists
begin to imagine a practice too. Xreate a bomb which will unfrozen mass
into energy in a millisecond blast. Then two bombs demonstrated the horror
of human thinking.

Sadly, few people realised afterwards that these two bombs also caused an
avalanche in the transformation, formerly a trickle, of knowledge-driven
to information-driven organisations. People began to think enmass
"first-the-book-then-the-deeds" (and perhaps only afterwards some original
thinking should the paw-paw strike the fan).

Dear Dan, there is no equilibrium when a nuclear bomb explodes. In a
nuclear reacter this "explosion" is controlled as a small step by step one
taking years to become completed.

>In this expression, it seems there is no ordered flow
>of energy. Instead it simply observes the being nature
>of energy contained. ?

In a nuclear bomb or a nuclear reactor only a little bit of mass gets
converted. Thus we have to think of the equation
E = MxC^2 or E = C^2xM
as
/_\E = C^2x/_\M
We may then think of C^2 (velocity of light squared) as the entropic
force and of /_\M as the flow of "frozen energy" (mass) into
"unfrozen" energy

>I suppose this a calculation of what Leibniz would
>have called "vis morte"?

You are right with respect to
E = C^2xM
But the
/_\E = C^2x/_\M
is "vis viva" of which the consequences in human hands is "morte".
In the sun which God put far away from human hands it is "viva"
for living organisms on earth.

>I observe it seems to say nothing about otherness
>(quality-variety). I am confident there is an important
>difference in the energies contained in, for example,
>a kilogram of sand and a kilogram of oil, or even a
>kilogram of oil and a kilogram of coal.

Dear Dan, when shifting your paradigm from a reversible to an irreversible
universe, please remember that you will have to expect many changes in
your thinking. as with respect to energy, always first think of "free
energy F(sy) of a system" as the "identity" of sureness. Then seek for the
"categoricity" of that sureness in the surroundings of that system.

For example, H2O (water) is the oxide of hydrogen whereas HF (hydrofloric
acid) is the fluoride of hydrogen. One kilogram of sand put into H2O as
its environment has no free energy. It stays sand. One kilogram of sand
put into HF as its environment has so much free energy that bubbles away
into a white cloud. Here we have been thinking of chemical free energy.

Should we be able to unfreeze all "frozen energy", the free energy coming
from one kilogram of sand and from one kilogram of coal will exactly the
same. A billionth of a billionth part of it would be the former chemical
free energy we spoke of.

>This seems to me to suggest the important
>relationship between total energy E and free
>energy F. Oil embodies significant free energy
>accumulated over millions of years of solar and
>tectonic activity in a way that sand does not, yes?

Yes. Father sun gave it as light in the sense of
/_\E = C^2x/_\M
and mother earth patiently converted it and stored it in the sense of
/_\F < sum of all Yx/_\X
   
>Back to calculating energies. We can infer kinetic
>energy in the being-becoming ordered flow of work,
>force x distance. Thus we seem to be saying, by
>virtue of its motion we can infer that something
>possesses kinetic energy.

Yes. But unfortunately, Dan, I have to stop now. My pancreas is forcing me
time and again to the WC, more there than here in front of the PC. But one
thing is still more important than me signing off.

>Could we say that doing work is about converting
>energy from one form to another?

Yes, yes, yes. In the reversible universe we have, taking pneumatical
energy as example
W = Px/_\V
where P is everywhere the same. But in the irreversible universe we
do not have equilibrium everywhere. Where there is not equilibrium,
pressures will not be the same. Thus the change in volume /_\V may
flow from P2 as the highest pressure to P1 as the lowest pressure.
We may calculate W approximately by taking the average (P2+P1)/2
as
W = (P2+P1)/2 x /_\V
(We can do it more precisely by using integral calculus.)

But we also have to take the difference (P2-P1) into consideration.
While this conversion of some from of energy into pneumatical work
W = (P2+P1)/2 x /_\V
is happening, the
(P2-P1)x/_\V
is also happening. What is this latter thing. It is directly proportional
to the entropy production /_\S. In fact, by dividing it by the absolute
temperature T, we get
/_\S = (P2-P1)x/_\V / T

What happens in the reversible world? P2 and P1 becomes the same
P so that
W = (P2+P1)/2 x /_\V
shrinks into
W = (P+P)/2 x /_\V = P x /_\V
while
/_\S = (P2-P1)x/_\V / T
shrinks into
/_\S = (P-P)x/_\V / T = 0x/_\V / T = 0

Ughh

>Enough for now. I have to go to "work." <G> Thanks At!!

Thanks Dan

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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