It appears as if Robert J. Bradbury <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
|
|EvMick, since you are such a cool guy, and I happen to have a
|very tall stack of books on thermodynamics on my desk, floor,
|in my bookcase, etc. (due to the research on Matrioshka Brains),
|I'll take a stab at your question...
|
|On Thu, 16 Mar 2000 EvMick@aol.com wrote:
|
|> All power sources that I'm familar with go from hot to cold.
|
|They must do this. The second law of thermodynamics requires it.
No, the theorems of thermodynamics do not require it.
The theorems (so called "laws") of thermodynamics simply sum up the results
of past physical experiments. To assert that thermodynamics (or science in
general, for that matter) _require_ physical experiments to behave in some
specific manner constitutes a very common misconception of the nature of
science.
The vastly spread religion of science: the belief that science ``requires''
experiments to behave according to scientific theory.
Scientists make experiments to _test_ their theories. They do not make the
experiments like policemen to find a naughty part of matter to punish. They
do not make experiments like priests to perform actions as required by dogma.
This written, I wish to add that I do not believe the honourable list member
to adher to the religion of science in the simplistic manner many humans do,
but I feel nevertheless that one should avoid to spread its dangerous memes.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:05:56 MDT