thermodynamics joke

There are three things you don't discuss with your friends:

1. Politics
2. Religion
3. Thermodynamics

alias isn't a friend, as far as i know, so,

Zeroth: "You must play the game." First: "You can't win." Second: "You can't break even." Third: "You can't quit the game."

that's in wikipedia. but i'm not qualified to explain it scientifically.

http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo-laws.htm

This page covers the "joke" in depth.

Oh my God 20packs! Stop. I'm gonna faint, I can't catch my breath!

This parts the real kicker.....



10.7 Gibbs' Gedankenexperiment

Take a box. Install a partition that divides it in half. Fill one side with an ideal gas, and fill the other side with a different ideal gas, so that both sides have the same temperature and pressure. Slide the partition out vertically, allowing the gasses to mix. The temperature and pressure will remain unchanged, but there will be an irreversible increase in entropy. The molar entropy will increase by Rln2.

As Gibbs observed,8 the Rln2 result is independent of the choice of gasses, "... except that the gasses which are mixed must be of different kinds. If we should bring into contact two masses of the same kind of gas, they would also mix, but there would be no increase of entropy".

There is no way to explain this in terms of 19th-century physics. The explanation depends on quantum mechanics. It has to do with the fact that one helium atom is identical (absolutely totally identical) with another helium atom.

I mean, don't you GET IT alias404? The Rln2 results are INDEPENDENT of the ghoice of gasses. They would mix, but there'd be no increase in entropy!

Oh God I just can't stop laughing.

And the way it tied in with the metastable systems........hoo boy.

Well, sure. Yeah. But if I tell it at work, I bet anything there will be someone who needs it explained.

Just roll your eyes at them and shun them by saying....

I shun thee
I shun thee
I shun thee

then throw dog poop on their shoes.

believe me they won't be asking for any joke explanations at that point.

Yeah I myself find it hard to get thru any papers on thermodynamics without just totally losing it.

But the real comedic genius was Heisenberg, I mean check this out.....

"The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa"

Oh my god! I think I just broke a rib...phew...yeah back in the day Heisenberg and this hip cat Schrodinger, used to trade quips back and forth in the Martin & Lewis style....an example....

"I knew of [Heisenberg's] theory, of course, but I felt discouraged, not to say repelled, by the methods of transcendental algebra, which appeared difficult to me, and by the lack of visualizability."

Who needs Richard Pryor or Chris Rock's lame attempt at comedy when you have gems like that floating around the physics community. Back in the old days, before Quantum Mechanics got all the attention, there was some very raw material called "transformation theory"...very Lenny Bruce type stuff....might check it out, if in need of a good laugh.

TRANSCENDENTAL ALGEBRA! I'll reserve this one for special occasions.

Ok I actually get the first and second laws, but I don't quite understand the zeroth and third law.

Whenever you resort to statistics, it is a sure sign that you are either guessing or at the limits of observartion such as light used to observe subatomic particles. The photon modifies the position of subatomic particles thus breaking a principle of observation in that the act of observation should not alter the object. It is hubris thus it preventing Heisenberg to admit he has reached a limit but put forth a bluster or 'snow job' in the form of statistical analysis.

lol!

bump

Oh man, this joke is just so good I had to bring it back.

How exactly did you run across this, Chai? I think you should take a long, hard look at how you are spending your time.

Just so long as you're not looking at how I'm spending my time...

I was trying to find an old thread about the universe expanding thank you.

but I got waylaid with all the thermal dynamic jocularities.

my mascara is just ruined.

That's entropy for ya.

What did one one unit of planck length say to the other unit of planck length?



Small world, isn't it?

What did the Nuclear Physicist have for lunch?

Fission Chips.