Second Law of Thermodynamics

From QED

The law that entropy always increases, 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 equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

—Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Presently I am collecting notes in order to expose the second law as an approximate law of statistical mathematics, not of physics, per se, and to show that there are indeed practical implications due to its inexact quality.

I will also spend some time discussing how there exists a system of physics, where mechanics forms the basis for statistical mechanics as Quantum Mechanics forms the basis of chemistry. Combined with Bohmian (or views similar to Bohm's) views on quantum mechanics (namely that the collapse of the wave function is an illusion), we show that Loschmidt's paradox is solved (a rigorous derivation of statistical mechanics implies T symmetry, while the common place version loses it in the approximation), and thus, interestingly, there doesn't appear to be any physical basis of time's arrow.

Why am I doing this?

Personally, I've found it to be one of the most interesting questions in physics that I've yet come across, and it's one of the only ones where I have a shot at slick presentation.

This page was recovered in October 2009 from the Plasmagicians page on Second_Law_of_Thermodynamics dated 21:17, 25 October 2006.