Re: [Phys-l] Equilibrium

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

John let's the system sit until something happens.  Evidently, while the 
system is "sitting" it is changing.  If it is changing, it is not in 
equilibrium (although, evidently, it will be after a "long time"(.
					Regards,
						Jack

"Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
		General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
		just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley




On Thu, 22 Apr 2010, chuck britton wrote:

> I know this isn't supposed to break down into a matter of definitions/
> semantics etc. - but I gotta ask.
> JD uses 'Equilibrium' as the Subject and 'explains' what he calls
> 'Thermal Equilibrium' so I have to 'assume' that Jack's reference to
> 'non-equilibrium' is related to the TINY number of things in A
> compared to the HUMONGOUS number of things in B. Is it this disparity
> of number that makes it 'non-equilibrium' in some sense??
>
> I ask - because it may help me in formulating a serious 'entropy'
> question that I have been mulling for years - interest in which has
> been renewed by Leigh's recent comments on the shuffled card deck.
>
> Thanks for any clarifications that might be forthcoming.
>
> At 3:33 PM -0500 4/20/10, Jack Uretsky wrote:
> Hi all-
>  	To the extent that this is a non-equjilibrium situation,
>
> <snip>
>
> On Tue, 20 Apr 2010, John Denker wrote:
>
> <snip>
> >
> > We let the system sit for a long time, so that it
> > reaches its maximum entropy macrostate.  This is what
> > I call thermal equilibrium, although I don't want to
> > argue about definitions.
>
> <snip>
>
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