Pages

Jump to bottom

21 comments

1 Political Atheist  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 5:42:47pm

Well done and thanks for the effort.

2 William Barnett-Lewis  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 5:57:19pm

That is probably the best physics lecture I've seen outside of Feynman's.

I hope it gets the reading it deserves.

3 freetoken  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 6:59:28pm

Many years ago in my Statistical Mechanics class the professor gave us a take home final. Because my answers to a few of the questions were similar to someone else's in the class (a friend) he accused me of plagiarism, which wasn't true and I had to work to convince him otherwise.

From that experience I knew personally that, indeed, "thermodynamics" is a tyrant!

4 pharmmajor  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 7:25:37pm

Superb rundown, LvQ. Are you a physics teacher?

5 Feline Fearless Leader  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 8:30:14pm

Excellent!

I assume the next section will include a good definition of open and closed systems since the understanding of the difference is soon to be important.

6 emcesq  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 10:27:11pm

BRAVO! You really have a knack for explaining this difficult subject on a high school level.

Looking forward to the following installments

7 Dancing along the light of day  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 11:13:32pm

I'm learning & loving your pages!

8 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 11:52:08pm

re: #1 Rightwingconspirator

re: #2 wlewisiii

re: #7 Floral Giraffe

Thank you so much. It takes a fair amount of time to write something like this up. I am glad it is being well received.

9 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 11:52:27pm

re: #3 freetoken

Many years ago in my Statistical Mechanics class the professor gave us a take home final. Because my answers to a few of the questions were similar to someone else's in the class (a friend) he accused me of plagiarism, which wasn't true and I had to work to convince him otherwise.

From that experience I knew personally that, indeed, "thermodynamics" is a tyrant!

Oh yes. Entropy always wins...

10 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 11:53:34pm

re: #6 emcesq

BRAVO! You really have a knack for explaining this difficult subject on a high school level.

Looking forward to the following installments

Thank you. The goal here is not to attempt to write on the level of a graduate physics text. I don't have an equation editor and I would lose most of my audience.

11 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Tue, Oct 12, 2010 11:54:00pm

re: #4 pharmmajor

Superb rundown, LvQ. Are you a physics teacher?

At a major university - or at least I have been :) I'm doing research now.

12 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 12:02:19am

re: #5 oaktree

Excellent!

I assume the next section will include a good definition of open and closed systems since the understanding of the difference is soon to be important.

Absolutely. Next section, I am going to talk a bit about probability distributions, relate that to pressure and work in a piston and then define open and closed systems. If I have the space and will power, it is pretty natural then to describe a micro state and give an idea of what entropy is.

The beautiful thing about that then is to use Shannon's law and not that genetic mutations are noting more than entropy in action and that actually, evolution is exactly what you would expect from thermodynamics.

But one step at a time.

13 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 12:04:41am

re: #12 LudwigVanQuixote

PIMF

The beautiful thing about that then is to use Shannon's law and note that genetic mutations are noting more than entropy in action and that actually, evolution is exactly what you would expect from thermodynamics.

14 mkelly  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 6:25:36am

Good job LVQ. I enjoyed this. I would have modified one thing and noted that there is no such thing as cold there is only varying amounts of heat and maybe added in the concept of absolute zero in this section. As they used to say in the Navy. BZ (bravo zulu)

15 lostlakehiker  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 6:35:25am

re: #4 pharmmajor

Superb rundown, LvQ. Are you a physics teacher?

Yes, LvQ is a physics professor. Few indeed would be those not in the profession who both knew enough to write it, and had honed their delivery skills well enough to write it right.

Few, perhaps, in the profession. Faculty almost always know their stuff. Almost all can write cogently and solidly. But in the hard sciences, really good writing is a bonus you don't always get.

16 lostlakehiker  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 6:41:57am

Oh, there is an equations editor that will serve beautifully if you want to embed equations in plain text. Us math types use it all the time in casual emails: LaTeX.

\begin{align}
e&=mc^2\ \
F&=ma\ \
s&=v t.\end{align}

If you've not run across it, it's available for free and it's becoming the lingua franca of technical communication.

Unfortunately, the system used here has some quirks; it does not display the first backslash, and it edits out multiple instances of a single character. I couldn't figure out how to get back to back backslashes, which one wants at the end of each equation line, to display without a space between them.

17 Decatur Deb  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 6:46:41am

I'm going to sit on this and the coming installments until I have a decent chunk of time to give it. Probably will happen when Comcast knocks me off LGF for a while. Linking to this might save some argument with literate deniers.

18 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 11:49:17am

re: #16 lostlakehiker

Oh, there is an equations editor that will serve beautifully if you want to embed equations in plain text. Us math types use it all the time in casual emails: LaTeX.

begin{align}
e&=mc^2
F&=ma
s&=v t.end{align}

If you've not run across it, it's available for free and it's becoming the lingua franca of technical communication.

Believe me, I am familiar with LaTex...

It is possible that might be able to use Math Type, translate the equations to LaTex and then go back in and make adjustments manually here... But honestly, I think keeping the level of writing to a sort of Scientific American style will reach the most people.

For people who want more, there is always Pathria...

Unfortunately, the system used here has some quirks; it does not display the first backslash, and it edits out multiple instances of a single character. I couldn't figure out how to get back to back backslashes, which one wants at the end of each equation line, to display without a space between them.

19 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 11:49:54am

re: #16 lostlakehiker

Oh, there is an equations editor that will serve beautifully if you want to embed equations in plain text. Us math types use it all the time in casual emails: LaTeX.

begin{align}
e&=mc^2
F&=ma
s&=v t.end{align}

If you've not run across it, it's available for free and it's becoming the lingua franca of technical communication.

Unfortunately, the system used here has some quirks; it does not display the first backslash, and it edits out multiple instances of a single character. I couldn't figure out how to get back to back backslashes, which one wants at the end of each equation line, to display without a space between them.

Weird editing error above...

Believe me, I am familiar with LaTex...

It is possible that might be able to use Math Type, translate the equations to LaTex and then go back in and make adjustments manually here... But honestly, I think keeping the level of writing to a sort of Scientific American style will reach the most people.

For people who want more, there is always Pathria..

20 iossarian  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 12:22:30pm

Great write-up.

21 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Oct 13, 2010 12:40:18pm

re: #20 iossarian

Great write-up.

Thank you!


This page has been archived.
Comments are closed.

Jump to top

Create a PageThis is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go.
Or... you can just click this button to open the Pages posting window right away.
Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
LGF User's Guide RSS Feeds

Help support Little Green Footballs!

Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled.

Donate with
PayPal
Cash.app
Recent PagesClick to refresh