Talk:Thermodynamics

reasons for undo

I have undone a sequence of edits that ended here.

My reason is that the edits are based on research reported in journals, not on reliable and established textbooks. Wikipedia is not a news reporter. It is an encyclopaedia of established principles and facts.

The edits that I removed verge on propaganda or promotion of a viewpoint. Thermodynamics is an established body of principle and fact. Chjoaygame (talk) 08:41, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Dear Chjoaygame:

1. Peer-reviewed journal articles are legitimate sources.
2. While Thermodynamics is an old and established field, there is tremendous current research that uses and extends the field. A major limitation to this page is that it does not give any flavor to the modern usage of thermodynamics, critical to so many other important modern endeavors. A reader of this page can come away with the idea that it is no longer an active subject, and that it was completed in the 19th century, which is not true.

While the recent additions are not perfect, they are in line with the spirit of Wikipedia in crowd-sourcing information on a topic. Please restore the edits and work to improve them to be suitable for the page. You could even mark some of the sections as needing additional work. Thank you Jeffreyjgray (talk) 03:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your careful thoughts. I am sorry that what I have to say on this is hardly what you would like me to say.

May I summarise my thinking? The phrase 'modern thermodynamics' often refers to an approximation in which bodies with sufficiently slow internal macroscopic flows are treated by relying on local thermodynamic equilibrium. In this case, time rate of local entropy production is considered. When the system is in a steady state of slow internal macroscopic flow, this makes some sense. When the internal macroscopic flows are unsteady, the general 'geography' of the system is changing; it is no easy matter to define the entropy change due to changing 'geography'. The actual contribution of thermodynamics to the solution of such problems is practically nil. The phrase 'modern thermodynamics' might also be regarded as indicating true and fundamental advances into non-equilibrium thermodynamics, in which local thermodynamic equilibrium does not prevail, so that true non-equilibrium generalisations of entropy have to be defined, and seem reasonable provided the departure from local thermodynamic equilibrium is small enough. So far as I know, there is little or nothing known about how to actually measure the functions that are so defined. It is mostly abstract theory.

I still think that the edits that I undid are more in the realm of journalism than of encyclopaedic material. Wikipedia generally does prefer established texts. Most peer reviewed journal articles are unreliable, sad to say. Crowd-sourcing of thermodynamics would be chaotic, to describe it charitably! I think the article should aim to help the reader know the truly reliable concepts of thermodynamics. That is a noble undertaking.Chjoaygame (talk) 11:02, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Chjoaygame, I agree with your removal of the section but not with the reasons you give. Science articles here cover material well beyond that which ends up in textbooks. Peer-reviewed journal articles in the sciences are not equivalent to journalism and are accepted as sources, with limitations, on Wikipedia. The distinction we do make is between primary and secondary sources. An individual researcher's or group's work is a primary source. Even though peer-reviewed and published in a reputable journal, they may be wrong or their work not yet accepted. Secondary sources, such as review papers, are preferred in most cases. We have an essay at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (science) which explains this. See the definitions here. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, you put the situation well. Thank you.Chjoaygame (talk) 18:45, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Explaining latest two edits

I want to post here that I reverted a small series of edits by an user who changed the sign convention on the First Law section, on the basis that many articles on thermodynamics use the minus sign convention, switching only to the plus one for srticles on thermochemistry and associated topics. Changing the sign in this article shouldn't be done unilaterally, since the wiki needs to keep consistency on the sign that is being chosen, and only this article was having the minus sign switched to plus. --206.62.162.123 (talk) 00:16, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Explain the factors affecting the thermodynamic stability with example?

Please publish answer. 117.233.90.234 (talk) 13:13, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Hw problem-helping thread

I wanna establish a post where everyone can share with each other the problems of thermodynamics they are stuck in and get help. 103.152.34.131 (talk) 00:40, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Limitations

The article should have a section about criticisms and limitations of the Theory. First, the Laws of Thermodynamics are the formal foundation of CLASSICAL Thermodynamics (CT). Classical has been superseded by Statistical Thermodynamics (and quantum mechanics) in our understanding of the real world. (Which isn't to say that Classical has no utility.) Second, CT is, for the most part, useful for near-equilibrium systems. Third, perfect thermal equilibrium can not be obtained (at least, not locally). Fourth, CT doesn't deal with rates of change and (for the most part) time. Since both rates of change and time are of *Fundamental* importance in our understanding of, and descriptions of, the world, CT is, at best, a useful approximation only for certain limited situations. The article claims CT is "critical" to economics, which is laughable - so is gravity, with this thinking. (Granted, CT is useful in describing energy efficiencies, which has clear economic use.) The article mentions both equilibrium and absolute zero - but neither are "real" (obtainable) states. The article claims entropy is minimal at 0K, but this has two problems: a) 0k is unobtainable and b) it isn't the case that as 0K is approached that entropy necessarily decreases (as is implied) - except in the (unobtainable (arguably)) limit of infinite time. The Zeroth Law, as given here, has obviously been taken from some "formal" (in the mathematical/logical meaning) system. If A=B and B=C then A=C does NOT necessarily apply to the operands of > or <. Nor do I agree that the 0th Law stated here is correct. I prefer the 0th law to be something like 'For any separate macroscopic system or object, a property exists called Temperature which will, absent perturbations, become uniform with heat energy flowing from higher temperature regions to lower.' It should be mentioned that neutrinos, for example, can't be kept out of any so-called "closed" or "isolated" system (there are ~10^7 per cm^2 per second at Earth's surface). Gravity has a significant (for some systems) gradient and can't be shielded. Black body radiation can't be eliminated. (Meaning there are no true "isolated" systems). And then there's Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Suffice to say that these can be ignored for most applications of CT. I believe that Temperature, Energy and Entropy are 'elementary' concepts in CT. That is, they can't be defined *in* CT, but must be taken as given. Anyway, these are some, but by no means all, of the limitations of CT. I think it would be useful to have a section discussing them.40.142.183.146 (talk) 11:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Need an article on Thermodynamics of nanostructures?

With care, I think something could/should be written (I am not volunteering). There was an article with that name which I have renamed to Thermal transport in nanostructures, I think an early editor thought that thermodynamics was short for "thermal dynamics". N.B., the transport page also needs work as it only goes up to 2005. Ldm1954 (talk) 14:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)