Talk:Thermodynamics/Archive 1

message: I am actually surprised to see that the article's quality has decreased (in my very humble opinion) since I was last involved with it about a year ago. The presentation has lost all coherence and it reads just like a collection of equations!
I think some discussion needs to take place as to what exactly we want to emphasize about thermodynamics. — Miguel 20:03, 2005 May 19 (UTC)
**I agree, the artile reads like a pasted collection of randomness.  As no one has taken responsibility to clean this article, I will begin to do so.  If anyone cares to help, don't hesitate.  Thanks: --Wavesmikey 04:02, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've started to get this article moving somewhere again. It's going to take alot of work. Karol 21:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree, hot and cold photons are not a good concept. The image is misleading, and not relevant to the discussion. The whole discussion of thermodynamic evolution should be in a separate article, not in the thermodynamics article. I will move it soon if nobody objects. PAR 10:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Very true. Karol 14:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The section has been moved to Thermodynamic evolution including the above discussion on its talk page. PAR 04:07, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The quality of the article 

message: :I'm going to begin trying to bring uniformity to the article; and then remove the clean-up tag for awhile if no one objects?--Wavesmikey 04:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sounds good, but go piece by piece, ok? PAR 05:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Homogenizing Article 

message: Thank-you for all who have helped on this article over the last couple of months!  I gave it a good overhaul.  You will find that I moved a lot of writing to its own page and connected those pages with short summaries.  I hope I helped; it feels clean to me (for the moment). Adios: --Wavesmikey 09:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You’re welcome, it took me the good part of a day to do it.  Also, you're right about the joke (although the one there now is funnier); after I deleted it, I then returned and moved it to the Quotes & humor (thermodynamics) page, plus I added a good quote, and organized that page. Talk later:--Wavesmikey 19:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, and thank-you; but let’s do expanding and layout changes gradually with conciseness being a focal point.  Talk later:--Wavesmikey 19:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Happy Article 

message: ::Perhaps I do not understand this 4th law, but from what I have read here it seems to be totally equivalent to the 3 original laws. (including the 0th of course). Any comments? Lagrangian
:::*Not sure. As far as I have been able to ascertain it is equivalent to the maximum power theorem, and is a necessary consequence of the  the 0,1,2,3 laws. But I don't think they are equivalent, because I don't think that any of these laws tell us anything about the load power and power effiency of an electromagnetic energy transformation process... or do they? Sholto Maud 11:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Check out the Impedance matching article. The idea of maximum power transfer is not limited to electromagnetic energy. If you have a body of mass M colliding with a second body, the maximum energy transfer occurs when the second body has the same mass M. When you have two resistors in series with a fixed voltage and the first resistor has resistance R, the maximum power is developed in the second resistor when it has the same resistance R. Any kind of wave, mechanical, light, quantum, etc., will be reflected from a boundary unless the "impedances" on either side of the boundary match. The reflection means incomplete power transfer. PAR 00:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * I put a table and graph of max power efficiency on the maximum power theorem entry to try and make this point clear, but I haven't seen it associated with mass before...Does this apply to mass transfer also? And also apply to "thermodynamic" waves (ie. energy spectrum within the thermal bandwidth)? And what happens at the photosynthetic boundary (ie. does a leaf perform impedance matching to obtain the maximum energy transfer from solar insolation?). What about the transfer of energy in the muscles of humans and other animals? What about a car engine or bike - is changing gears a form of impedance matching? Sholto Maud 04:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think gear changing is a form of impedance matching. Usually you have something like P = Fe Ve = Fw Vw where Fe and Fw are the force of the engine and the wheel respectively and Ve and Vw are the velocities of the engine and the wheel respectively, and P is power. The values of Fe and Ve are rather fixed, but you want to vary Fw and Vw according to your needs, and thats what the gears do. When going up hill, or accelerating, you want a large Fw and you settle for a small Vw, but when cruising, you want high Vw and only need a small Fw. I'm not sure about the other cases. PAR 14:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 4th law, maximum power & impedance

message: I am wondering if there is any point in having an "Overview section". The Introduction has as much an overview character as the section iteself and isn't even that long. So the two should probably be merged, with the engine picture kept on the right. Karol 19:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I merged the overvie section into the intro and reduced the length a bit and reworded. Karol 08:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The point of the overview section 

message: I understand there are two such approaches to thermodynamics.Thermodynamics (from the Greek thermos meaning heat and dynamis meaning power) is a branch of physics that studies the effects of temperature, pressure, and volume changes on physical systems at the macroscopic scaleThis is classical thermodynamics,and statistical thermodynamics deals with microscopic world (statistically).Correct me.--Sahodaran 04:16, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The absolutely best thermo book in the world is "Thermodynamics and an introduction to thermostatistics" by Herbert B. Callen. The last chapter is on thermostatistics, and I cannot figure out from this chapter what thermostatistics is. The chapter is basically concerned with an extended first law which states the conservation of momentum and angular momentum as well as energy, and with other conserved quantities and the symmetries associated with them. PAR 14:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, I merged the little content I found there. Ideally, I think it should be gracefully merged into the introduction somehow (or maybe a different section). Karol 23:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Statistical and Classical thermodynamics

message: I replaced the complex statement of the laws with the straightforward versions that are given in the main articles. It makes no sense to have a complicated version of the laws in an overview article, and a simple version in the main articles. PAR 23:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree. Karol 09:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement of the Laws

message: I just added a redirect from Thermal science to Thermodynamics. I'm not sure this is correct however, since Thermodynamics seems to be a subdiscipline of Thermal science, but it seemed better than a red link. I invite those with knowledge of this field to correct or replace my redirect as appropriate. Mike Dillon 23:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think thermal science should consist of not only the equilibrium cases (which is what thermodynamics is about) but about Heat transfer too.Heat transfer,of course,is non-equilibrium case.I am not able to pin-point to an exact link right now.--Sahodaran 03:00, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that is all thermodynamics. There is classical, equilibrium state thermodynamics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, which needs more content, mind you, and I notice is not mentioned in this article. Karol 07:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Thermal science]] 

message: Physical oceanography is a current candidate on the Science collaboration. Vote for it if you want to see this article improved. --Fenice 07:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Science collaboration of the week]]

message: With respects to the previous thread on the 4th law, contributers might be interested to read the following abstract snip 
The traditional Differential Calculus often shows its limits when describing living systems. These in fact present such a richness of characteristics that are, in the majority of cases, much wider than the description capabilities of the usual differential equations. Such an aspect became particularly evident during the research (completed in 2001) for an appropriate formulation of Odum's Maximum Em-Power Principle (proposed by the Author as a possible Fourth Thermodynamic Principle). [my emphasis] 
C.Giannantoni,
 
ENEA, National Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment, Research Center of Casaccia, S. Maria di Galeria, 00060 Rome, Italy
'Mathematics for generative processes: Living and non-living systems', 
Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics
Volume 189, Issue 1-2, 1 May 2006, Pages 324-340  
::*Hence I propose the main article mention this development. 
Sholto Maud 06:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 4th Thermodynamic Principle Revisited