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To: AndrewC
Ahhh. A cryptic response with no supporting detail. Must be AndrewC.
196 posted on 03/12/2003 12:10:15 PM PST by Junior (Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.)
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To: Junior
cryptic and ultimately off-topic and irrelevant. If the second law behaved accordint to AC's rules, life itself would be impossible to design, create or evolve.
203 posted on 03/12/2003 12:24:56 PM PST by js1138
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To: Junior
Ahhh. A cryptic response with no supporting detail.

The word "wrong" is cryptic? Why should I be required to provide support? "We would fly off the earth", or "tunicate and vertebrate genome relationships point to a common ancestor 550 million years ago" (paraphrased) do not have support. But here is the second law.-- dS = dq(rev)/T

And this

"SIR: I am referring to the article entitled 'Physical Chemistry,' C&EN, June 2, page 20.  Toward the end of the article is stated: 'Another area where physical chemistry likely has important biological applications is the study of the properties of steady states far from equilibrium.  These are stable systems that do not follow the second law of thermodynamics; instead they require a continual supply of energy from outside the system to maintain themselves.'
Please be advised that there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics.  Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems.
I recognize that it is very difficult to write an article on as broad a subject as physical chemistry in two pages, and ordinarily I would not bother to point out minor errors.  However, there is somehow associated with the field of far-from-equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems.  It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.

John Ross
Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University"
[John Ross, "Letters to the Editor", Chemical and Engineering News, July 7, 1980, p. 40]
208 posted on 03/12/2003 12:56:15 PM PST by AndrewC
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