2004 March - 20 articles
Over fifty years ago Arthur Eddington wrote [1]: “The second law of thermodynamics holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equa...
We define heat kernel measure on punctured spheres. The random field which is got by this procedure is not Gaussian. We define a stochastic line bundle on the loop space, such that the punctured sphere corresponds to a generalized parallel transport...
Philosophers of science have found the literature surrounding Maxwell's demon deeply problematic. This paper explains why, summarizing various philosophical complaints and adding to them. The first part of the paper critically evaluates attempts to e...
Using an isolated measurement process, I've calculated the effect measurement has on entropy for the multi-cylinder Szilard engine. This calculation shows that the system of cylinders possesses an entropy associated with cylinder total energy states,...
Classical and quantum aspects of fluctuations are reviewed in a discussion on the universality of the second law. Consideration is given to the need of information and the requirement of a ratchet and pawl-type mechanism for the utilization of energy...
A mechanism is described which can create a chemical potential gradient from a single heat reservoir. The mechanism is equivalent to a Maxwellian valve. Heat supplies the energy through thermal fluctuations to form the gradient contrary to the second...
A mechanism of a gated pore in a membrane is described. Fluxes of gas molecules pass through the pore and produce a pressure gradient in a process that challenges the second law.
We consider quantum diffusion of the initially localized wavepacket in one-dimensional kicked disordered system with classical coherent perturbation. The wavepacket localizes in the unperturbed kicked Anderson model. However, the wavepacket get deloc...
Thomson's formulation of the second law states: no work can be extracted from an equilibrium system through a cyclic process. A simple, general proof is presented for the case of macroscopic sources of work. Next the setup is generalized towards situ...
The nature of the thermodynamic behavior of Type I superconductor particles, having a cross section less than the Ginzburg-Landau temperature dependent coherence length is discussed for magnetic field induced adiabatic phase transitions from the supe...
In the present contribution a simple thought experiment made with an idealized spherical enclosure bathed in zero-point (ZP) electromagnetic radiation and having walls made of a material with an upper frequency cut-off has been qualitatively analysed...
Recently, the author suggested a simple and composite equation of state by incorporating fundamental thermodynamic properties like heat capacities into her earlier concise equation of state for gases based on free volume and molecular association / d...
The localizing properties and the entropy production of the Newtonian limit of a nonunitary version of fourth order gravity are analyzed. It is argued that pure highly unlocalized states of the center of mass motion of macroscopic bodies rapidly evol...
Equilibrium statistics of Hamiltonian systems is correctly described by the microcanonical ensemble. Classically this is the manifold of all points in the N-body phase space with the given total energy. Due to Boltzmann's principle, eS=tr(δ(E-H)), it...
The possibility of a complicated internal structure of an elementary particle was analyzed. In this case a particle may represent a quantum computer with many degrees of freedom. It was shown that the probability of new species formation by means of...
The randomness of Brownian motion at thermodynamic equilibrium can be spontaneously broken by velocity-dependence of fluctuations, i.e., by dependence of values or probability distributions of fluctuating properties on Brownian-motional velocity. Suc...
M. Porto (Phys. Rev. E 63 (2001) 030102) suggested a system consisting of Coulomb interacting particles, forming a linear track and a rotor, and working as a molecular motor. Newton equations with damping for the rotor coordinate on the track x, with...
I review some selected situations in which order builds up from randomness, or a losing trend turns into winning. Except for Section 4 (which is mine), all cases are well documented and the price paid to achieve order is apparent.
Even after over 150 years of discussion, the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics continues to be a source of confusion and controversy in physics. This confusion has been accentuated by recent challenges to the second law and by the di...
A detailed analysis of the adiabatic-piston problem reveals, for a finely-tuned choice of the spatial dimensions of the system, peculiar dynamical features that challenge the statement that an isolated system necessarily reaches a time-independent eq...
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