Re: Questionable interpretation of physics

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

Timoth Folkers asked about:

> ... everyone now agrees {Einstein’s 1905 paper on photoelectric
> effect} was the real starting point of the quantum theory revolution,
> although Planck started it in 1900.  [Does 'everyone' agree on this?
> I would still say Planck is the starting point of the revolution.]]

According to
  http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1918/planck-bio.html
  In a paper published in 1900, he announced his
  derivation of the   relationship: this was based
  on the revolutionary idea that the energy emitted
  by a resonator could only take on discrete values
  or quanta. The energy for a resonator of frequency
  v is hv where h is a universal constant, now called
  Planck's constant.

That seems pretty categorical to me.

> y = A (f^n) exp(-hf/kT) + c .................................... (1)
>
> y = A (f^n) { exp(-hf/kT) /[1 + b exp(-hf/kT)] } + c ............(2)

What's y?

> What did Einstein do? He looked at equation 2. This is Planck's
> equation.  He said, "Nah! too complicated. Let me put b = 0. That
> captures the "essence" of Planck." ...

Horsefeathers.

If you want to know what Einstein said, try reading Einstein's
papers.  The guy really knew how to write.  Also remember
that he was writing to a community where even the experts
were unfamiliar with his ideas, so he patiently explained
them in meticulous detail.

> Anyway, Einstein takes entropy and energy and says temperature is the
> ratio of energy to entropy...  [dQ = TdS perhaps, but T =
> (energy)/(entropy)???  And attributing this to Einstein?]

You can't write TdS as dQ or d(anything else).  TdS is an
inexact differential, and cannot be written as the derivative
of Q or anything else.  For details, see
  http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo-forms.htm
and references therein.

In any case, temperature is not energy per entropy.  For
starters, the sign of the energy is ill-determined because
you are free to choose the zero of energy arbitrarily.
Meanwhile the entropy and the temperature are measured
relative to an absolute zero, i.e. with no gauge freedom.

Secondly, the temperature can become infinite and then
negative while the energy is increasing and the entropy
remains positive and finite.

> Then, Einstein looks at the whole thing again. He sees that when
> equation 1 is simplified, it means that y goes up in steps of hf. Or
> in his case K goes up in steps of hf...  [First of all, I can’t see
> how you get from (1) to E = hf.  Secondly, E doesn’t 'go up in steps
> of hf', it IS hf for the photon.]

"Steps of hf" is OK.

Certainly the energy for a harmonic oscillator goes up in
steps of hf.  And each mode of the EM field is effectively
a harmonic oscillator, so the energy of that mode goes up
in steps of hf.