English

Inconsistency of the non-standard definition of work

Statistical Mechanics 2007-07-26 v1 Soft Condensed Matter

Abstract

We show that the recently postulated non-standard definition of work proportional to force variation rather than to displacement [A. Imparato and L. Peliti, cond-mat arXiv:0706.1134v1] is thermodynamically inconsistent at both microscopic and macroscopic scales and leads to non-physical results, including free energy changes that depend on arbitrary parameters.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0707.3802,
  title  = {Inconsistency of the non-standard definition of work},
  author = {Jose M. G. Vilar and J. Miguel Rubi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.3802},
  year   = {2007}
}