I am no uber-meister of thermodynamics either. That PhD thing I got helps, but I too have to go back, re-read the basics and then build up to the relevant literature on the subject I am studying. (This is true of all scientific work; you are always reviewing the basics.)
Oh so true. It’s one reason I spend time on the forms at this blog’s host, Science Forums (dot NET) — answering questions forces me to review basics that might have atrophied. It’s a constant battle.
Anyhow, I did (and continue to do) a lot of re-reading of my favorite thermo texts
I understand the individual words in “favorite thermo texts”, but taken together it makes no sense to me. Thermo being one of my least favorite parts of physics and all that.
Thermodynamics proposes, kinetics disposes. If you want to know all about an aspirin, ask a physicist. If you want an aspirin, ask a chemist. All have their place. Deep questions about the nature of reality – high temp supercons, symmetries of the vacuum toward matter, the fundamental nature of gravitation – are obviously physics, then reduced to engineering. That is why we fail.
A hermetically isolated hard vacuum envelope contains two closely spaced but not touching, in-register and parallel, electrically conductive plates having micro-spiked inner surfaces. They are connected with a wire, perhaps containing a dissipative load (small motor). One plate has a high vacuum work function material inner surface (e.g., osmium at 5.93 eV). The other plate has a low vacuum work function material inner surface (e.g., n-doped diamond “carbon nitride” at 0.1 eV). Above 0 kelvin, spontaneous cold cathode emission runs the closed isolated system. The plates never come into thermal equilibrium when electrically shorted. The motor runs forever. A clever reader is invited to find the error. (Not a Shottky barrier – heavy doping, ohmic contact for the diamond.)
Physical theory is a 40 year bust for parity violations, symmetry breakings, SUSY, quantum gravitations, high temp supercons… Ask a chemist. What is the worst it can do, succeed?
(Diode answer: Go find the pertinent SSC-WF.pdf)