It took me 10 years to understand entropy
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It took me 10 years to understand entropy
1–10 of 295 posts
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#2Nice writeup! BTW statistical thermodynamics has a name for that set of possible microstates, perhaps the most pretentious sounding name in all of physics, the "canonical ensemble".
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#3This reminds me of a great article that I saw on Hacker news that really helped explain the concept of Entrophy to me. Linked here:
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#4[deleted]
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#5English was not my college professors native language. It took me a while to realize entropy was not the same as enthalpy. Very confusing.
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#6but is it not hubris to think that we really know much about the origin and outcome of the universe?
is it wise to make decisions based on this modicum of knowledge that we currently have regarding thermodynamics and the universe?
I suspect that the scientists of a trillion years from now will know a lot more than we do know...so, I don't really much that much confidence in current pronouncements regarding the beginning and possible end of the universe..
and yes I do have a degree in science and courses in physics & thermodynamics
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#7Nice writeup! BTW statistical thermodynamics has a name for that set of possible microstates, perhaps the most pretentious sounding name in all of physics, the "canonical ensemble".
Nah, Ultraviolet Catastrophe is worse, then there's wavefunction collapse. And there's gotta be something in particle physics that puts these terms to shame. Given that the particle names are drawn from literature and whimsy.
I looked up the dictionary definition of pretentious, and so it doesn't really apply, but the hERG channel is a critical ion channel and various drugs block this and cause Really Bad Things. hERG stands for "the human Ether-a-go-go-Related Gene" - a pretty bloody stupid name but whimsey is not restricted to particle physics.
Canonical ensemble, along with microcanonical and grand canonical ensembles are all over statistical mechanics. And I suspect there's not one bit of whimsey in their naming. There was not any humour in my stat mech course aside from me trying to make sense of it.
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#8Nice writeup! BTW statistical thermodynamics has a name for that set of possible microstates, perhaps the most pretentious sounding name in all of physics, the "canonical ensemble".
> the most pretentious sounding name in all of physics
Also, "the free will theorem" and "the god particle".
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#9English was not my college professors native language. It took me a while to realize entropy was not the same as enthalpy. Very confusing.
Yeah, and while computational modeling has a good handle on enthalpy in drug design, it's all handwaving and statistics for entropy. And yet it's entropy that breaks predictions and drives medchem.
Solve how to properly model the free energy of interaction between a ligand and a protein (or two proteins) with proper solvent treatment and (a) you'll be famous, not Kardashian famous, but famous and (b) a whole lot of people will buy or download your software.
Re: It took me 10 years to understand entropy
#10but is it not hubris to think that we really know much about the origin and outcome of the universe? is it wise to make decisions based on this modicum of knowledge that we currently have regarding thermodynamics and the universe? I suspect that the scientists of a trillion years from now will know a lot more than we do know...so, I don't really much that much confidence in current pronouncements regarding the beginn…
Does it hurt to try?