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Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

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Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#21
post #2

I hate Veritasium's clickbait, and I think most of his videos are very poor, but this one is the exception. It's very well put together. The first ten minutes of the video is exactly how I introduce entropy to people. Of course I can't give him a pass on how crass it was telling that women he has a PhD in physics (he does not). The video would have been so much better without that two seconds of footage...

"I think most of his videos are very poor," Why do you think so? (Most to me seem reasonable but one on speed of electricity stands out as badly done (he redid the video but it too could have been better).)

He seems to exaggerate the importance of things when they make for a good story and sound interesting. This is a classic flaw in popular science but I think he's got a lot more egregious with it over the years.

The worst example I remember, which is actually what drove me to unsubscribe, was when he said that the golden ratio was "a pretty five-y number" because it can be written as 0.5 + 0.5 * (5^0.5). Anyone with a good mathematical background could tell you there's nothing five-y about 0.5 at all. I'll grant him, the golden ratio is still a little bit five-y because of the sqrt(5).

The whole context and presentation seemed like it was designed to make the viewer feel like they'd learnt something even though nothing of substance was really delivered in those 20 seconds. He does that a lot.

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#22
post #18
post #11

A pithier way to introduce this topic: the first law of thermodynamics, a.k.a. the law of conservation of energy, is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. In light of this, how can there ever be a shortage of energy? [Note that this is intended to be a rhetorical question advanced for the purposes of pedagogy. If you find yourself wanting to post an answer, you have m…

> how can there ever be a shortage of energy I think it's not so much a shortage of energy, but that there thermodynamic equilibrium and thus no available energy to do anything. I don't think this will ever happen tho, it's pretty clear to me that making energy more dense is a universal process.

Not really - look up “heat death” of the universe.

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#23
post #2

I hate Veritasium's clickbait, and I think most of his videos are very poor, but this one is the exception. It's very well put together. The first ten minutes of the video is exactly how I introduce entropy to people. Of course I can't give him a pass on how crass it was telling that women he has a PhD in physics (he does not). The video would have been so much better without that two seconds of footage...

[deleted]

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#25

I recently enjoyed this presentation by Sean Carroll that touches on definitional and philosophical issues with entropy. The talk made me feel less stupid for not feeling entirely comfortable with how entropy was explained to me before. Turns out there are a few different ways to define and quantify entropy that are used in different contexts and they each have some unresolved philosophical issues. "Can you get time…

I wonder how many concepts that are so complicated for our brain to formalize or even process.

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#26
post #2

I hate Veritasium's clickbait, and I think most of his videos are very poor, but this one is the exception. It's very well put together. The first ten minutes of the video is exactly how I introduce entropy to people. Of course I can't give him a pass on how crass it was telling that women he has a PhD in physics (he does not). The video would have been so much better without that two seconds of footage...

> I think most of his videos are very poor,

This sounds quite bitter, as does griping about him mentioning his PhD.

His videos have excellent production quality, and do a great job of communicating advanced STEM concepts to laypeople in an entertaining way.

Maybe you don't like them, but that doesn't mean they are bad. Given their popularity, it would seem they are anything but.

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#27
I think the concept would be easier for me to understand if we talked about the inverse of entropy - i.e. some kind of measurement for the concentration of useful energy or "order". I think it would then be more intuitive to say that this measurement always decreases. Do we even have a word for the opposite of entropy?

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#28
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how can there ever be a shortage of energy I think it's not so much a shortage of energy, but that there thermodynamic equilibrium and thus no available energy to do anything. I don't think this will ever happen tho, it's pretty clear to me that making energy more dense is a universal process.

Not really - look up “heat death” of the universe.

Heat death doesn’t mean “no heat” or that energy has depleted. It just means that energy is fully dispersed. All kg the hear exists, it’s just that no one place has any more than anywhere else, and so there is no longer any transfer of energy.

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#29
post #27

I think the concept would be easier for me to understand if we talked about the inverse of entropy - i.e. some kind of measurement for the concentration of useful energy or "order". I think it would then be more intuitive to say that this measurement always decreases. Do we even have a word for the opposite of entropy?

Potential

Re: Entropy: A little understood concept in physics [video]

#30
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think most of his videos are very poor," Why do you think so? (Most to me seem reasonable but one on speed of electricity stands out as badly done (he redid the video but it too could have been better).)

He seems to exaggerate the importance of things when they make for a good story and sound interesting. This is a classic flaw in popular science but I think he's got a lot more egregious with it over the years. The worst example I remember, which is actually what drove me to unsubscribe, was when he said that the golden ratio was "a pretty five-y number" because it can be written as 0.5 + 0.5 * (5^0.5). Anyone with a…

> Anyone with a good mathematical background could tell you there's nothing five-y about 0.5 at all.

Um, I disagree? Visually, the 5 is memorable here. "Fivey" just seems to mean "lots of the number 5"?

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