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Re: ENERGY WITH Q



On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, John S. Denker wrote:

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?

Agreed for the spin glass example. However I interpreted Ludwik's
question (which was what I was attempting to answer) as being a)
far more general and b) about a fundamental matter of principle.

In the real world it is often (always?) virtually impossible to
know the absolute entropy, yet I (still) don't know of any
examples where that turns out to be a problem, i.e., where it
denies us the ability to do thermodynamics. If this is true, I
conclude that it is O.K. to add an arbitrary constant to S or,
equivalently, to set S = 0 at an arbitrary point.

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