![]() ![]() ![]() There was also a sense that regardless of its foundations, the Second Law was successfully used in practice. ![]() But the almost-universal conventional wisdom became that the Second Law must always hold, and if it didn’t seem to in a particular case, then that must just be because there was something one didn’t yet understand about that case. There were still mathematical loose ends, as well as issues such as its application to living systems and to systems involving gravity. But by the end of the 1800s, with the existence of molecules increasingly firmly established, the Second Law began to often be treated as an almost-mathematically-proven necessary law of physics. It began partly as an empirical law, and partly as something abstractly constructed on the basis of the idea of molecules, that nobody at the time knew for sure existed. The basic concept of the Second Law was first formulated in the 1850s, and rather rapidly took on something close to its modern form. All in all, it’s a fascinating story, that both explains what’s been believed about thermodynamics, and provides some powerful examples of the complicated dynamics of the development and acceptance of ideas. And to check myself I’ve been keen to know just where this conventional wisdom came from, how it’s been validated, and what might have made it go astray.Īnd from this I’ve been led into a rather detailed examination of the origins and history of thermodynamics. But it’s a new understanding, and to get to it I’ve had to overcome a certain amount of conventional wisdom about the Second Law that I at least have long taken for granted. How Did We Get Here? The Tangled History of the Second Law of ThermodynamicsĪs I’ve explained elsewhere, I think I now finally understand the Second Law of thermodynamics. This is part 3 in a 3-part series about the Second Law:Ĭomputational Foundations for the Second Law of ThermodynamicsĪ 50-Year Quest: My Personal Journey with the Second Law of Thermodynamics ![]()
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