Davey, Kevin (2006) Justification in Statistical Mechanics. [Preprint]

Preview

PDF prob_stat_mech.pdf Download (89kB)

Abstract

According to a standard view of the second law of thermodynamics, our belief in the second law can be justified by pointing out that low entropy macrostates are less probable than high entropy macrostates, and then noting that a system in an improbable state will tend to evolve toward a more probable state. I would like to argue that this justification of the second law of thermodynamics is fundamentally flawed, and will show that some puzzles sometimes associated with the second law are merely artifacts of this incorrect justification.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Davey, Kevin
Keywords:	Probability, Statistical Mechanics
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Depositing User:	Kevin Davey
Date Deposited:	30 Jul 2006
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:14
Item ID:	2853
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Date:	July 2006
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/2853

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item