Thermodynamics as Math


The Second Law is not a philosophy, expressed as a pile of words. It's a differential equation:

Tds = du - pdv

where T is Temperature, s is entropy, u is available energy, p is pressure, and v is volume. Each d is the calculus equivalent of delta, so du means more or less "the change in energy".

If math excites you (or makes you weak in the knees), note I could have given you a much fancier equation full of partial derivatives. If you want to learn this stuff - not learn about it, but learn it - you should first learn partial derivation.

Creationists admire the thermodynamics Laws:

"It should be stressed that these two Laws are proven scientific laws, if there is such a thing"

Henry Morris in Scientific Creationism

What he means by "proven" is that the Laws weren't discovered by experiment: they were deduced. In the texts, some assumptions are made. The assumptions are stated as formulas. Then, some calculus is done, and we arrive at the Laws.

Which makes it all the stranger that no "Scientific" Creationist has ever written down Morris' proof in mathematical form. It's never been published in a scientific journal, either. Why would that be, if it's a correct proof?


Last modified: 6 June 1997

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