Re: ENERGY WITH Q

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

At 09:49 AM 10/26/01 -0700, John Mallinckrodt wrote:
> I do like the spin glass example because, as you say, it is easy
> to calculate the absolute entropy.  But I don't yet see why that
> absolute value is *important*, that is, why one could not add an
> arbitrary constant to it without changing any measurable
> thermodynamic results.

Well, let's work it out.
  1) Suppose that in addition to the R log 2 of molar entropy that we know
about (one bit per nucleus), suppose we had an additional 17 bits per
nucleus of "secret entropy".
  2) Assume antiprotons have just as much "secret entropy" as regular
protons.  (It wouldn't make sense for them to have negative entropy.)
  3a) The foregoing suppositions are inconsistent with the observed
thermodynamics of proton-antiproton annihilation. QED.
  3b) Supposition (1), even without supposition (2), is inconsistent with
Gibbs's Gedankenexperiment, because it would require having 2^17
distinguishable types of nuclei.  QED again.
  http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/physics/thermo-laws.htm#sec-gibbs

I suppose there might be _some_ "secret entropy", but there can't be very
much.

Even if adding a fudge to the absolute entropy weren't provably wrong, it
would be pointless.  We agree we can calculate the absolute entropy.
Adding an arbitrary constant can't possibly help, so why not just do the
obvious calculation and be done with it?