Thus spake russell standish circa 09/22/2009 07:37 PM: > Thermodynamic language is obviously lexically mismatched > with the Newtonian language of particles, positions and momenta, which > describe a time reversible system.
It's not clear to me that they're lexically mismatched. The lexicon in both cases consists of points in real cartesian space, force, mass, momenta, etc. The difference, I suppose lies in thermodynamics being statistical aggregates of the base language? What is it in thermodynamics that can't be formulated in the same language as Newtonian dynamics? Note that I'm not asking what assumptions, written in the language, apply under reversible versus irreversible systems. I'm asking what can't be written in terms of the same language? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
