A Fresh Look at Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
Mathematical Physics
2009-10-31 v1 Condensed Matter
math.MP
Abstract
This paper is a non-technical, informal presentation of our theory of the second law of thermodynamics as a law that is independent of statistical mechanics and that is derivable solely from certain simple assumptions about adiabatic processes for macroscopic systems. It is not necessary to assume a-priori concepts such as "heat", "hot and cold", "temperature". These are derivable from entropy, whose existence we derive from the basic assumptions. See cond-mat/9708200 and math-ph/9805005.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.math-ph/0003028,
title = {A Fresh Look at Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics},
author = {Elliott H. Lieb and Jakob Yngvason},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math-ph/0003028},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
LaTex file. To appear in the April 2000 issue of PHYSICS TODAY