Re: macroscopic vs microscopic degrees of freedom

[John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPOMONA.EDU>]

On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, Joel Rauber wrote:

> Instead of trying to decide if some activity was dW or not, lets decide if
> it is dQ or not.

That is *precisely* what I was trying to say.

> dQ arises from that part of an energy transfer between two systems in
> contact(not to be viewed as a flow, but rather as an accounting terminology)
> that occurs by virtue of a difference in temperature between the systems.
> The transfer of energy that arises from any other means is dW; that is, the
> complement to what is dQ.

And that is *precisely* the "loose definition" (of both dQ and dW) that I
was trying to propose.

Thanks for saying it more simply and directly than I did.

John Mallinckrodt      mailto:ajm@csupomona.edu
Cal Poly Pomona          http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm