Timeline for Do hydroelectric power plants violate the popular scientific notion of entropy = disorder?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 12, 2020 at 7:10 | vote | accept | Arthur | ||
| Jul 29, 2019 at 4:00 | history | bumped | CommunityBot | This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 9:44 | comment | added | lcv | Your example has nothing to do with entropy. In fact the system is not isolated and it is gravity doing the work. Replace water with a billiard ball and will become evident. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 7:01 | history | bumped | CommunityBot | This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed. | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 7:37 | answer | added | CR Drost | timeline score: 2 | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 2:05 | comment | added | user108787 | I pretty much guarantee that if you read the Wikipedia article on entropy, you will end up mentally more disordered than when you started it : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(order_and_disorder) | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 1:52 | comment | added | Arthur | @JonCuster It's not just popular press, though. It's basically anything that's not graduate physics, or possibly undergraduate thermodynamics / statistical mechanics. Also, in my opinion, among the simplifications done by popular press, equating entropy with disorder is not their worst sin. | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 1:48 | comment | added | Jon Custer | Well, popular press notions of entropy are crap, so... | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 1:21 | comment | added | Arthur | @NeuroFuzzy The first example goes form $2V,0$ to $V, V$, say. To me the latter seems like a more "mixed", or disordered state. The second example, however, goes from $V, 0$ to $0, V$, which to me seems like the degree of order hasn't changed at all. My point is that if this is true, then the generator should feel the difference: in one case the entropy / disorder changes more than in the other. But I see no reason why it should feel any difference, since the same amout of water comes through with the same force, and it runs off just as easily. | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 1:16 | history | edited | Arthur | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 38 characters in body
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| Nov 12, 2016 at 1:15 | comment | added | user12029 | Can you quantify any of this? There might be an interesting question here, but I don't see why your perception of the "disorder" of the two different states should hold true. You have two basins each with a volume $V$ of water in them... and afterwards you have one basin with a volume $2V$ of water in it. Or you have volumes $V+x$, $V-x$ before and $V$, $V$ afterwards. So what? | |
| Nov 12, 2016 at 1:06 | history | asked | Arthur | CC BY-SA 3.0 |