1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 193 [Controversy]

What Horse Whistle just talked about is Clausius entropy, but the connotation of entropy is much more than that.

In later generations, the concept of entropy can be called the top stream among the top streams, and all disciplines are happily discussing it.

Natural science and philosophy have been discussing entropy for a long time, and literature, film and television works also regard it as a guest of honor, and there are countless concepts and theories extended by it.

Not mentioning the discussion of other disciplines, only within the scope of physics, entropy also has three important historical stages-Clausius entropy, Boltzmann entropy, and information entropy.

The change of each stage means that human beings have a deeper understanding of the essential laws of the world.

The next thing he will talk about is Boltzmann entropy, which is also the most commonly discussed entropy in later generations.

As for information entropy, he doesn't intend to talk about it. After all, it is something 100 years later, which is a bit too advanced.

"For a certain substance, the entropy of gas is greater than that of liquid, and the entropy of liquid is greater than that of solid. Is it conceivable that entropy is actually a measure of chaos and disorder?" Ma Shao said slowly.

"After all, it is obvious that a mass of matter changes from solid to liquid, gas, its structure becomes more chaotic, and the particles inside move more wantonly."

Horse Whistle paced to the blackboard, and then said: "Intuition or paranoia tells me that this idea is correct... Then, is there any way to give this idea a mathematical expression?"

Hearing this, many people felt their brains opened and they were amazed.

"The degree of chaos of matter? How can this be expressed mathematically?" People can't help but wonder.

"Can this really be done..."

The horse whistle picked up the chalk, wrote down the Boltzmann formula directly on the blackboard, and said: "Of course there is a way, this is the true face of the second law of thermodynamics."

Although the Boltzmann formula is concise, if people want to understand it, some explanations are naturally indispensable.

Looking at the bewildered physicists, Ma Shao didn't rush to explain the formula itself, but said: "Let's imagine such a scene, in a box, there are two hydrogen molecules..."

"Molecule?" Before the words fell, there was a discussion in the audience.

At this time, people's understanding of elementary particles is extremely scarce and not uniform.

Atomic theory is still controversial, and molecular theory is even less accepted.

"Or it's okay to say atoms." Ma Whistle thought for a while, then changed his mind.

"I don't agree with things like atoms. They can't be seen or touched. It's pure speculation. Matter should be infinitely divisible!" A physicist immediately protested, with a somewhat violent attitude.

Ma Shao smiled: "Conjecture? In my opinion, infinite divisibility is a conjecture without factual basis. When did human beings divide infinitely?"

"From ancient times to the present, we have been carrying out limited divisions. According to the principle of experience, the most reasonable guess is that matter has limited divisibility."

"Atoms are indeed beyond our senses, but infinite divisibility is not only beyond our senses, but even beyond all experience, and is even more illusory."

"It's like an ant walking on a tabletop. Every step it takes is the same as the previous step, so it naively thinks that the wooden plane under its feet is infinitely extended. How absurd it is."

Atomic theory is one of the most controversial topics in academia at this time, and various factions have been arguing for a long time.

In fact, this debate would go on until Einstein's time.

The tone of Ma Shao's remarks was not peaceful, which aroused people's heated discussions even more.

"He's right, atomic theory is the truth!"

"Nonsense, Dalton's theory is simply heresy!"

"The disciples of Berzelius are all @%/!"

"You curse again!"

For a while, the scene seemed a little out of control.

Seeing this, Ma Shao quickly changed the topic: "As for atomic theory and molecular theory, I think Brownian motion is a case worthy of attention. I will publish a paper to elaborate my point of view in the near future. Everyone is welcome to criticize... As for now , that is not the subject of my speech."

Fortunately, the quality of the professors was not bad, they didn't really let the scene get out of control, and they quieted down after a while.

Ma Shao drew a schematic diagram on the blackboard and continued: "Whether it is an atom or a molecule, or any other tiny particle, does not affect my next discussion. Suppose there are two hydrogen atoms in a box—let's say this Say."

"There is no doubt that macroscopically, the distribution of these two hydrogen atoms has three situations, all on the left, one on the left and one on the right, and all on the right."

"On the micro level, the number of states corresponding to the three are one, two, and one respectively... Let us draw a curve to represent it."

"Assuming that the probability of occurrence of each microstate is equal, this curve actually reflects the distribution probability of atoms."

"Obviously, as the number of atoms increases, the curve becomes narrower and the atoms have a greater probability of being more evenly distributed in space, which is consistent with our living experience - air can diffuse spontaneously without will spontaneously shrink, and it is almost impossible for us to encounter a situation where the air atoms are all concentrated in one place and cause people to suffocate."

After the narration, the horse whistle brought people's attention back to the Boltzmann formula: "Now we can understand the meaning of this formula. When a system has the largest entropy, it is in the most chaotic state and corresponds to the largest number of micro-states. macro state."

The scene was quiet for a while.

Most people half-understand, and don't immediately understand the mystery of Boltzmann entropy.

This is also reasonable, after all, the horse sentry just gave the Clausius entropy, and many people have not even figured out the Clausius entropy.

But this is not a problem for Ma Shuo. As a teacher, he has seen this state in all his students.

His solution is very simple, which is to constantly give examples, make analogies, and ask questions, just like engineers training artificial intelligence, instilling a large amount of data into students' minds and labeling them.

This may be the only way. After all, many cognitions are indescribable and can only be obtained through training.For most people, intensive trial and error and iteration are a stage that professional learning must go through.

So Ma Shao started a stormy explanation, put forward many cases in daily life, and set up questions for investigation, which was completely like a teacher giving a lecture.

He is fully qualified to do so. As an excellent teacher 180 years later, if he cannot teach these predecessors in the [-]th century, it probably only shows that human beings are a race that has not improved.

As the class progressed, even the professors had to admit that the yellow-faced Indian chief in front of him was an impeccable instructor.

In the academic hall of today's world, every tone of his voice seems to echo the sages of ancient Greece.

In the end, except for a few ignorant professors, most of the audience here understood the concept of Boltzmann entropy, at least conceptually.

However, understanding does not mean agreeing.

"Do you have any questions, everyone?" Ma Whistle said, and restrained the teacher's posture a little to make himself look more humble. "If you have any questions... well, friends, you can raise your hands."

As soon as the words were finished, a man in his early thirties raised his hand to signal. His position was relatively back, which forced him to stand up. Obviously, he was not a scholar with deep qualifications.

"What's the name?" Horse Whistle said casually.

"George Bull," said the man.

Hearing this name, Ma Shao couldn't help being startled.

(End of this chapter)