Re: Imperfections of classical thermodynamics
- From: Darwin123 <drosen0000@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 13:00:32 -0700 (PDT)
On Sep 5, 5:25 pm, Jarek Duda <duda...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I used 'for me' to express informally intuitions, which are often muchThen these "laws" that you say you violate have nothing to do
more valuable than formal definitions.
with the Laws of Thermodynamics. Those examples of yours don't really
violate the Second Law as used by a physicist or engineer. They are
personal feelings that you have assigned the name of
"Thermodynamics."
Trapping energy is impossible?Yes, energy can be trapped. However, the ultimate trap for energy
is entropy. Entropy traps energy. Every time you trap energy, some
entropy is created. The entropy itself is an energy trap. I think the
heat that you are talking about is energy trapped by entropy.
Look at ATP - there is trapped a lot of it for a few magnitudes >more time than in kinetic/rotational/vibration energy.Yep, it's trapped for a time. What is it trapped from? Usually
from a glucose molecule that is oxidized. The glucose molecule and
oxygen "trapped" energy. However, the glucose model and oxygen
combined. Through a series of steps, this energy was released and
"trapped" in an ATP molecule. This didn't violate thermodynamics.
Placing energy there is not random, but uses extremely >sophisticated localized mechanism (enzyme).The enzyme is not a localization mechanism. How do you get that?
The enzyme doesn't store or release energy at all. The reactants store
energy and release it during a chemical reaction. The enzyme speeds up
some other chemical process that stores the energy that was released
into the product. Notice that this reaction would occur even if there
was no enzyme. It would just occur far more slowly.
The enzyme doesn't "localize" anything. Do you know what
"localize" really means?
Actually, "we" don't always do the averaging. Projection
Quantum mechanics alone says that every eigenfunction only 'rotates', that density function remains unchanged ... to get >random behavior we have to approximate everything by averaging >over space.
operators make the "random behavior" exact by destroying the off-
diagonal parts of the densitity matrix.There is something called "wave
function collapse" that turns the rotation into a projection. This
"wave function collapse" is irreversible.
In the two-mirror example that we discussed, the wave function
collapse makes the process irreversible. Basically, the two-mirrors
interact with the photon wave function between the two mirrors.
There is some complicated mathematical transformation that
describes the photon wave function in terms of the electromagnetic
field. It's a little complicated, but there are texts on
electrodynamics that show you how its done. In any case, the photon
wave function and the mirrors have an interaction. There is a rate of
transition describing per unit time per photon for the absorption of a
photon by a mirror.
Whenever a photon is absorbed by the mirror, that is a wave
function collapse. The wave function grows a little weaker. When the
last photon is gone, the reaction can't go the other way.
It is the wave function collapse that puts "irreversibility" into
quantum mechanics. Once the wave function is turned to an
eignefunction, by the elimination of states, the reaction can't go the
other way. Granted, I don't think everything is known about wave
function collapse.
I congratulate you on making an example simple enough to analyze
what is going on without much mathematics. You example was simple
enough to think through what happens. Once the photons are gone from
between the mirrors, that's it. However, the farther apart the mirrors
are, the less likely this "wave function" collapse becomes. The
photons take longer to bounce back and forth between the mirrors.
This kind of approximations are called mean field - they forget >about correlations...In the case of thermodynamic systems, is the mean field
approximation really an approximation or a consequence of wave-
function collapse? I think we have pin pointed here a source for our
disagreement. In my view, based on some background working on such
problems, the wave-function collapse is "real." The interaction (also
called the measurement) actually reduces the degeneracy of the system.
The wave-function is reversible, but I don't think the "transition"
from wave to particle is reversible.
In any case, you must agree that when the mirrors reach their
maximum speed there are no photons between the mirrors. Conservation
of momentum keeps those two mirrors sailing in opposite directions at
a constant speed forever. The chance of the two mirrors "reversing"
their direction and emitting photons is vanishingly small.
Sure they do. You are imagining the enzyme molecule as a stiff
From enzyme point of view ...
It has places that attract electromagnetically some molecules, and
moving parts to adsorb/release some energy, so finally energy is
transferred from one molecule to another.
Enzymes don't 'look' for molecules as You're writing, but only >purely stochastically meet them and use dipoles (1/r^2) when they >are close to finally attach.
"ball and stick" configuration of nucleii. If they were like that,
they could never take part in the reaction. The molecules have to
vibrate, rotate, and even form unstable chemical bonds in order to do
what they do. The electromagnetic field that surrounds them changes.
That dipole you describe changes with time. In order for an enzyme to
be specific, the changes in the enzyme molecule have to be effected by
the reactant and product molecules. These vibrations are quantized
(e.g., as phonons). There are quantum mechanical interactions between
the enzyme and the reactants (or products).
There are quantized excitations that have to pass between enzyme
and surrounding molecules. If not photons, then phonons have to be
exchanged. In any case, the excitation is both quantized and
experiences wave function collapse. From what I have read, it is
quantization and wave function collapse that cause thermodynamics.
However, this is still controversial and the work is not complete. Its
just that you haven't even looked at your system quantitatively.
So the kinetic energy can't spontaneously go back into the IR
About the flashlight - after infinite time everything is perfectly
localized - all energy is in kinetic energy of mirrors.
radiation. Or does it?
There may be a little discrepancy in my reasoning here. Please
strengthen your argument by calculating (quantitatively) the chance of
one photon being emitted simultaneously from each mirror, resulting in
the mirrors slowing down.
Withdrawing energy does not automatically decrease the temperature.
While crystallization energy is released freely and quickly diffuse,
increasing temperature.
But this is highly localized reaction - microscopic physics doesn't
forbid mechanisms that would put this energy in more stable form, like
ATP ... using some enzyme.
When molecule leaves crystal, it drain required energy form heat -
reduce temperature.
The system is dynamics: energy is being withdrawn and emitted
simultaneously from different parts of the crystal. The temperature is
defined in terms of ensemble averages. So if one molecule leaves the
crystal, and the total energy goes down locally, the temperature does
not go down locally. The temperature can only be defined over
thousands of atoms.
The other correlations don't disappear for one molecule. As you
point out, the other correlations disappear only for a spatial
average. Or else there is a wave function collapse. In either case,
changing the temperature locally is a completely invalid operation.
Temperature doesn't exist for one molecule.
That is not true because your antennae, even if small, is
About nanoantennas, this kind of radiation is very weakly emitted by
all atoms in give temperature.
But antenna works is different way - uses high energy electron which goes through it creating electromagnetic wave.
Their energy is so high that it's very unlikely that such electron
would be created spontaneously - the antenna absorbs much more >then it emits.
connected to wires with thermal electrons (or current carriers of some
other variety). The electrons that carry the electric current to the
antennae are in thermal flux. So yes, a few electrons in the wire can
give up their energy to create one high energy standing wave in the
antennae. Absolutely. This is as likely as a big standing wave moving
a number of electrons around to make thermal energy in the wires of
the nanoantennae.
What you are doing is using quantum mechanics at will. For a small
size system (a nanosystem), the ground state energy is very large.
Therefore, the electrons in the antennae always form standing waves
even when they aren't emitting or absorbing energy. They can't do much
else because of their confinement. The ground state is already a high
energy state. The excited antennae is in the next high energy state.
So there are already large energy excitations in the antennae.
Forming one slightly bigger isn't very unlikely. The small size of the
antennae eliminates the small energy excitations. You can't make
quantization disappear in the initial state.
.
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