Re: Thermo/Sidebar (signatures please)

[Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

You see below what my mail system gives me for information. It does not tell
me who wrote the message; all I'm told is that this message came from
Phys-L.

Please sign your messages.

Thanks.

Joel Rauber
Joel_Rauber@sdstate.edu

> At 08:03 PM 11/25/99 -0700, Jim Green wrote:
>
> > in my attempt to be as general as possible (as is my want in
> > asking questions), I do include stat mech in classical
> physics and I even
> > extend this to thermo ...
>
> Sounds sensible to me.
>
> On the back-side of that coin, there are cases where it
> *does* make sense
> to pretend not to know something.  For instance, re-doing
> geometry without
> the parallel postulate was quite fruitful.
>
> Still, the main  point is that AFAIK there is no
> self-consistent classical
> theory, and we shouldn't apologize for making nonclassical arguments
> whenever that's the shortest path to the right answer.
>
> > although my dear friend Sadi would not be all that happy.
>
> Are you sure about that?  Carnot was a pretty smart dude.
> There are some
> prissy pedants who try to construct a purely classical
> thermodynamics, but
> Carnot wasn't one of them.