Talk:Zeroth law of thermodynamics

message: Hi, I'm not quite sure what your point is. It is very true that the relation "is in equilibrium with" is meant to be both symmetric and transitive, but it seems to me that it can hardly be disputed that this is not part of the zeroth law. (At least not in its usual formulations, which you could object to.)
More importantly, the zeroth law does not imply an ordering of any kind. This is the main reason I'd claim that it does NOT "provide enough for a definition of temperature".
- Victor Gijsbers
There is no requirement that temperature provide an "ordering" of equilibrium states.
HOWEVER... a particular system MAY have continuous states, in which case states of constant temperature will form surfaces, and the normal provide a natural order of nearby surfaces. It is then simple to construct a global temperature function that provides an ordering of states (which seems to be your definition of temperature)
Oz 00:14, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Concerns about relevance and factual accuracy

message: Transitivity is usually stated as "A=B AND B=C THEN A=C". The article has the less commonly stated version "A=B AND A=C THEN B=C". Obviously they both mean the same thing, but since the zeroth law is usually stated the first way (look for instance at the first page of Google results for "Zeroth law of thermodynamics"), I'm changing the formula to the first version (which is also the way it is in Thermodynamics). — Asbestos | Talk 10:57, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The external link at the bottom of the page suggests otherwise. 192.75.48.150 16:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transitivity 

message: I put in a simple example of why the first and second laws by themselves lead to a paradox that equality of temperatures (or equality of any other intensive variables) is only sctrictly required for an even number of systems, and then explained how the 0th law resolves it. I think this goes to the heart of some of the previous discussion on this topic above, but gives a clearer exposition of it. I hope you find this example useful. Hernlund 15:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added a section on the even-odd paradox 

message: The Zeroth Law is important in science, and yet this article is particularly light. Also, the various thermodynamic articles such as heat, internal energy, thermal energy, etc. are often confusing and contradictory.
In Halliday and Resnick Physics, one finds the statement:
"This discussion expresses the idea that the temperature of a system is a property which eventually attains the same value as that of other systems when all these systems are put in contact. This concept agrees with the everyday idea of temperature as a measure of the hotness or coldness of a system, because as far as our temperature sense can be trusted, the hotness of all objects becomes the same after they have been in contact long enough. The idea contained in the zeroth law, although simple, is not obvious. For example, Jones and Smith may each know Green, but they may or may not know each other. Two pieces of iron attract a magnet but they may or may not attract each other.
"A more formal, but perhaps more fundamental phrasing of the zeroth law is:
There exists a scalar quantity called temperature, which is a property of all thermodynamic systems (in equilibrium states), such that temperature equality is a necessary and sufficient condition for thermal equilibrium.
"This statement [J.S. Thomsen, "A Restatement of the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics," American Journal of Physics, 30, 294, 1962] justifies our use of temperature as a thermodynamic variable; the formulation given above [ie. the transitive statement] is a corollary of this new statement. Speaking loosely, the essence of the zeroth law is: there exists a useful quantity called "temperature."
- Parsa (talk) 17:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transitivity definition 

message: Sadly, the otherwise excellent nontechnical intro to thermodynamics, Goldstein and Goldstein (1993), is silent about the Zeroth Law. Its history is especially murky. I see that the mathematical nature of the relation of thermal equilibrium has been the main bone of contention on this Talk page. It is indeed an equivalence relation, and I have revised the entry accordingly.123.255.28.179 (talk) 07:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The Refrigerator and the Universe

message: I am not a physicist.  Can we get one to weigh in on this supposed law?  This article is not only hard to understand, it is hard to believe.  Is this some kind of inside joke from the physicists?
Mea (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 04:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a physicist but I can at least tell you that it's not a joke. BTW I doubt a non-physicist or non-engineer would ever have any use for this law (I sure as hell don't) so the fact that it's hard to understand really doesn't matter. 156.110.35.114 (talk) 07:41, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

text: I am a physicist. Could people AT LEAST check physics books before claiming that something is false because they don't understand it? How stupid is that? Geez...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.222.169.5 (talk) 17:45, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No doubt. This is covered in introductory physics for sure. I think we even covered it in general chemistry. P. D. Cook Talk to me! 14:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Is this article bullshit?

message: User:Kbrose seems to have a problem with this. Although for the life of me, I can't figure out what it is besides xe doesn't like it. It's sourced reliably, so it should stay in the article regardless if xes personal feelings about the content. -Atmoz (talk) 14:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thermometer 

message: Jojalozzo seems to accept the Fowler and Guggenheim statement of the zeroth law as definitive, as if it were chiseled in stone. It is true, so far as I know, that Fowler invented the label "zeroth law", though I have not actually found the original use of the term, so far as I know. Sommerfeld attributes it to Fowler alone, but gives no reference that I can trace; perhaps someone can help with that. The ideas expressed in the law are by no means original with Fowler and Guggenheim; they were repeatedly stated by many long before them. The invention of the label does not mean the invention of the law. Sommerfeld himself states the law, with its label, differently from Fowler and Guggenheim.Chjoaygame (talk) 19:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I am agnostic (and ignorant - still trying to learn this). I was just trying to improve what's written in the section on temperature so it's more understandable and has more motivation. I took what was there at face value and and tried to add what I thought was being assumed or communicated implicitly. That did mean I accepted the presentation as it was - I didn't want to change the meaning - just to make it clearer and more explicit - but it doesn't mean I wouldn't be as willing to similarly edit a different presentation that develops some other perspective. I appreciate this discussion a great deal. Jojalozzo 03:34, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply to Jojalozzo

message: I replaced the statement "This ordinary language statement by-passes the complications of statements such as by Tait and by Planck mentioned just above, that talk in terms of As, Bs, and Cs." with a more correct statement.
The statements in terms of A,B, and C are precise, they are not "complications". Guggenheims statement is easily read and understood, but it is imprecise. For example, you cannot use Guggenheim's statement to show that if A is in equilibrium with B, then B is in equilibrium with A, (i.e. "in equilibrium with each other") unless A and B are in equilibrium with C. Specifying the zeroth law as an equivalence relationship does allow you to say this. I have no problem with imprecise, easily understood statements as an introduction to the zeroth law, but to confuse precision with "complications" is simply wrong. Once you understand, fully understand, an equivalence relationship, you will realize that it fully conveys the zeroth law and that ALL implications of the zeroth law can be derived from it.PAR (talk) 03:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove incorrect opinion 

message: I think hardly anyone watches the article on Thermal equilibrium. Because of this, I think, a well-known editor is currently having an unchecked field day there.Chjoaygame (talk) 18:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  a well-known editor is currently having an unchecked field day at the article on [[Thermal equilibrium]] 

message: Currently this article begins:
 The zeroth law of thermodynamics is a generalization principle [...]
What's a "generalization principle"?  Maybe I can guess, but it's not something people say very often, so it sounds strange, and I *don't* think it's a good way to start this article.  Could someone try to improve it?   John Baez (talk) 19:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's a "generalization principle"? 

message: The newly proposed statement is not sourced. Sourcing is relevant here, because we are looking at a long previously established idea, the term 'zeroth law' for it being an arbitrary label proposed in a single textbook (Fowler and Guggenheim 1939), who in the very same sentence label it also as the "postulate of the ″Existence of temperature″[p. 56.]. The statement is not uniform amongst competent writers, and the re-wording of the statement proposed here is therefore an arbitrary and unsourced proposal by a Wikipedia editor. Perhaps one historically original source statement, not labeled with the term 'zeroth law', was by Rankine in 1853. The statement by Maxwell in 1871 was also not labeled as the 'zeroth law'; Maxwell did, however, offer the term 'Law of Equal Temperatures'.
The newly proposed statement is moreover verging on being self-contradictory. It reads: "A system is said to be in thermal equilibrium when it experiences no net change in thermal energy in time. The most precise statement of the zeroth law is that thermal equilibrium constitutes an equivalence relation on pairs of thermodynamic systems." This statement uses the term 'thermal equilibrium' in two ways: once as referring to a single system (not specified as being open or closed to exchange of matter), and in the next sentence, without notice, a second time as referring to a relation between two systems (again not specified as being open or closed to exchange of matter). This is hardly compatible with an insistence on rigorous precision of logic.Chjoaygame (talk) 00:12, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  new statement 

message: Much of the content in the history section appears to be original research and synthesis. We should be very careful in constructing our own history from primary sources to avoid inferences or conjectures and be vigilant in avoiding all original analysis of historical texts. We need secondary historical works to support whatever we say there. I propose we remove content that is not supported by such secondary sources. Jojalozzo 01:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and let's take the same attitude to the rest of the article.Chjoaygame (talk) 02:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: As someone who has a much better understanding of this topic than I, please have at it. Jojalozzo 03:12, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Have at what?Chjoaygame (talk) 03:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Please feel free to remove interpretive content not supported by secondary sources (i.e. if it's not a simple summary, paraphrase or direct quote of primary sources). Jojalozzo 15:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research and synthesis in history section? 

message: This edit has the cover note "this does not relate to the physical meaning - heat is short-distance motion of atoms".
In the nineteenth century people often enough talked of heat as it were the erratic motion of the microscopic constituents of bodies of matter and radiation, but in the early twentieth century, that usage became viewed as poor physics, with good reason. Carathéodory was not the first to clarify this, but, with the support of Max Born, he was influential in clarifying that heat in physical terminology is not a property of a single body. Rather, it is energy transported under certain conditions between the thermodynamic system and its surroundings, or between two thermodynamic systems. Carathéodory was perhaps the first to popularize the notion of a compound thermodynamic system, comprised of two or more simple thermodynamic systems, separated by walls. The notion of a selectively permeable wall is one of the fundamentals of thermodynamics. For such thinking, what matters is the existence of a certain kind of wall, specially intended by Carathéodory to forestall talk of 'heat' as a property of a body.Chjoaygame (talk) 12:06, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment on new edit 

message: Y 2402:3A80:13A4:35C6:0:0:D71D:D1F8 (talk) 06:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The zeroth law states that if two thermodynamic systems are in thermal equilibrium with each other, and also separately in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then the three systems are in thermal equilibrium with each other.