I want to make a few comments on a few items in hopes that John will expand
on some of this thoughts and to initiate some discussion: not hard to do at
phys-L.
A lot of the document is a plea to eliminate the usual mathematical
representation of the 1st Law that is rather ubiquitously found in most
texts. Denker's equation 3.
(3) Delta E = W+Q
1) In the discussion John provides four bulleted items for the four possible
ways energy can leave system A and arrive at system B. I simply don't see
that the structure of this equation doesn't allow for the 3rd and 4th
possibilities; it strikes me that the structure either allows all four ways
or none.
E.g. 3 units of energy are transfered from system A in thermal form and
arrive at B in nonthermal form.
Then Delta E = +3 and W = 0 and Q =+3, the structure allowed it. I admit
the structure doesn't allow me to retain the information that the energy
arrived at B in non-thermal form; but the structure still allows the
situation and can be incorporated the equation.
2) In Section 3, I quote:
"It [entropy] depends not only on the state of the system, but also on how
much of a description I've been given."
This implies that entropy is not a state variable of a system (function of
state). Many people like to insist that it is a state variable. Comments?
3) From section 4,
". . .thermal energy is just a special type of kinetic energy."
This may be true of an ideal gas consisting of infinitesimally sized hard
spheres, but what of a gas consisting of vibrating mass dipoles? Do not
conventional discussions of thermal energy admit potential energy degrees of
freedom as well in the thermal energy count?