Quantumechanic

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Entropy

You should probably read WP:3RR concerning your repeated change to the lead of the Entropy article. Thank you for your contributions. Plastikspork (talk) 20:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Lead of entropy article

Note that the lead of a wiki article should be just a short concise summary that explains the basic concepts consisely.

In the rest of the article the concepts can be worked out in more detail. I would urge you to edit this and other physics articles in a different way than wiki articles on other non-scientific subjects. The reason why someone would want to consult wikipedia on this subject would be to learn something about the subject as opposed to just looking up some definition (although that may happen as well).

So, the article is best written in the same style as you would prepare a lecture for (theoretical) physics students or write lecture notes. You give refs. for further reading or to explain what scientist proposed what idea and when. But you don't simply drop a statement and give a citation for verifiability as is customary on other wiki pages. That does not work in physics. Count Iblis (talk) 16:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. We want people to be able to understand what entropy is. That is the primary objective of the article. The references serve not only for verifiability but also as an avenue for further learning and study. Quantumechanic (talk) 16:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Two reverts are required

You can just go to this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Entropy&oldid=306659377

and click on "edit". You are then not reverting first and editing, but you are then directly editing your last version.

Now, I think it is not a problem to mention quantum mechanics per se, only the density matrix formalism is a bit too heavy for the lead (which everyone including lay persons will read). You don't have to use exactly the same words as are mentioned in some given source either. In the Book by F. Reif, a few pages are taken to explain what one means by "state of a system", so if we drop a word like "microstate" in the lead, it has to be explained briefly but using our own words. Count Iblis (talk) 17:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Much easier, thank you! Quantumechanic (talk) 17:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Editing entropy article

Note that I did not simply revert back. I took a careful look at your edits of yesterday and then rewrote it such that it still contained the points you wanted to make. You decided to let entropy be defined in terms of internal energy, heat work and that is still in the lead of the article. All I did was to correct mistakes with language and remove all the unnecessary math from the lead, because the lead section is supposed to be as non technical as possible. Count Iblis (talk) 17:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for not simply reverting. But deleting references is inconsistent with policy. Perhaps such content belongs in a detailed section and not in the lead. It is much better for you to move it then to delete it. If you disagree with something let's discuss it before completely removing it.

I agree that the lead should be as simple as possible so let's work with your current format the best we can. But I do not approve of vague or misleading physical statements in the definition. Quantumechanic (talk) 17:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

But you failed to produce a reasonable text yourself. You can still access the old version if you need to copy the refs you gave. The problem I have with your writing style is that your text doesn't explain much. You just drop statements from advanced books, you don't give appropriate definitions and you don't specify the condition under which the statements are valid. That's unacceptable. Count Iblis (talk) 17:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Your editing of entropy page is under discussion

see here – Count Iblis (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring at Entropy

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Entropy. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. EdJohnston (talk) 03:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply at User talk:EdJohnston#Entropy. Have you heard of the 'Bold, Revert, Discuss' paradigm? This suggests that, when bold changes prove controversial, it is time to go to the talk pages to search for a common plan, one that can win consensus. Persistence in your own plan, after you've encountered resistance, may be undesirable. With extremely technical articles such as Entropy, making progress one small step at a time may be the easiest way to go. A large edit containing many changes is hard for others to react to. EdJohnston (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be the most viable approach. Quantumechanic (talk) 16:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Boltzmann's discoveries and lost sources

You again dropped some qoute from some book without giving the proper context. Why don't you first study the topic yourself and pass the exams on thermodynamcs and statistical physics at university level before you pretend to understand this topic?

About your edit: If you write that systems tend to go to the lowest energy states, then that's not correct in the contexts of the case we are looking at. If you have an isolated system then that system cannot exchange energy with the environment and therefore the total internal eergy cannot change.

If you look at a system that is in contact with a heat bath at some temperature T, then the probablity that the system in in some state with energy E is proportional to exp[-E/(k T)]. Count Iblis (talk) 19:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly correct (at least the last part about Boltzmann's principle). So that equation means that the probability is highest for the lowest energy state. When there is excess energy contained in an isolated system, this fact remains. In a closed system the increasing entropy is associated with transfer of energy from less probable, higher energy states to more likely low energy states. Quantumechanic (talk) 21:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Your last sentence is not correct in the context of the setting of the article. In case of an isolated system the energy is simply constant. Then, if you astart out with a situation in which not all of the microstates (each with the some energy) are equally likely, then Boltzmann's H-theorem will lead to the probability getting more and more uniform, i.e. the entropy will increase. Also Liouville's theorem (Hamiltonian) guarantees that when the probabilities are uniform, they will stay uniform. Count Iblis (talk) 21:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)