Talk:Philosophy of thermal and statistical physics

message: I think all of this pages content can be incorporated into the thermodynamics article. Perhaps this page should not be deleted, but dedicated to explaining the link between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. As it stands, it could use some  work in that area. PAR 01:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: The link between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics is important because it raises philosophical questions about how the postulatory method is used in science. There are questions raised about how humans "do" science, and how different subfields use the same words to mean the same thing, but with different implicit assumptions that are only assumed by those in the same subfield when they use language in a slightly sloppy way (which is the way it's usually used) or math in a slightly sloppy way (which happpens sometimes too). For example: which is a better way to approach thinking about the laws of nature? Determining a property of matter relative to a perfect vacuum at a temperature of 0 K which can only be approached or determining a property of a system relative to static equilibrium with an infinite reservoir which can only be approached? This is a philosophical question because the two ways will give the same answers if rigor is maintained. But the choice is still made very often in a subconscious way in the mind of researchers in different fields and this choice has conseqeunces that often prevent scientists in different fields from understanding each other. This is not addressed in the present article, so I understand your suggestion for a merge. I am changing the merge tag to an importance tag and adding an expert tag here. We need a systems ecologist who is really great at physics or a physicist who has really dived into the systems ecology literature or a person familiar with both along with issues in the philosophy of science. In a few weeks, I might be familiar enough with the topic to do a major rewrite of this article or move some of what I'm trying to do at exergy here. Flying Jazz 15:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance 

message: This article does not discuss the philosophy of thermodynamics, it just gives a brief summary of the laws of thermodynamics. 
The only part that can be argued to be on topic is the discussion of Maxwell's demon, which already has its own article.
Unless some secondary literature is presented that explicitly addresses the topic of this article, it should be merged or deleted. --dab (𒁳) 12:28, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Any material that is of value here could be merged elsewhere. EdJohnston (talk) 14:08, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I also agree. Perhaps an article of this title is needed, but it would better be written from scratch than as a rescue of the present version. At present there is little or nothing in this article that is not covered adequately in other Wikipedia articles, I think.Chjoaygame (talk) 04:50, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: What is the point of this article?

message: I undid this edit. I don't have immediate access to the cited work, but still the edit as a whole isn't right. The versions were not, I think (subject to correction), first proposed by R.L. Park. I think he reported that wags proposed them. Someone who has access to the book may check this out before I do. Quite possibly the book can be cited, for the statement that R.L. Park reported the wags' version. It would be great if someone could find a real origin for the versions.Chjoaygame (talk) 04:43, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  undid edit; reason