The Thermodynamic Universe

Particle Physics and High Energy Physics have stagnated since the early 1970s. Now, the underlying principle of reductionism OCo so sacred to twentieth-century physics OCo is itself being questioned. This book examines these tumultuous developments that are leading to a paradigm shift and a new horizon for Physics.Presenting the new paradigm in fuzzy spacetime, this book is based on some 100 papers published in peer-reviewed journals including Foundations of Physics, Nuovo Cimento and The International Journal of Modern Physics (A&E), as well as two recently published books, The Chaotic Universe (Nova Science, New York) and The Universe of Fluctuations (Springer). The work had predicted correctly in advance epoch-turning observations, for example, that the Universe is accelerating with a small cosmological constant driven by dark energy when the prevalent line of thinking was the exact opposite. Similarly, the prediction of a minimum thermodynamic residual energy in the Universe has also been realized more recently. Further to a unified description of gravitation and electromagnetism via fluctuations, several other features are presented in complete agreement with experiments, in sharp contrast to the present ideas which are neither verifiable nor disprovable.

This book provides a clear and mystery-free presentation of the central concepts in thermodynamics — probability, entropy, Helmholtz energy and Gibbs energy. It presents the concepts of entropy, free energy and various formulations of the Second Law in a friendly, simple language. It is devoid of all kinds of fancy and pompous statements made by authors of popular science books who write on this subject. The book focuses on the Four Laws of Thermodynamics. As it is said in the dedication page, this book is addressed to readers who might have already been exposed to Atkins' book having a similar title. It challenges both the title, and the contents of Atkins' book, Four Laws That Drive The Universe. One can glean from the title of this new book that the author's views are diametrically opposed to the views of Atkins. The book is addressed to any curious and intelligent reader. It aims to tickle, and hopefully to satisfy your curiosity. It also aims to challenge your gray matter, and to enrich your knowledge by telling you some facts and ideas regarding the Four Laws of Thermodynamics.

Entropic Creation is the first English-language book to consider the cultural and religious responses to the second law of thermodynamics, from around 1860 to 1920. According to the second law of thermodynamics, as formulated by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, the entropy of any closed system will inevitably increase in time, meaning that the system will decay and eventually end in a dead state of equilibrium. Application of the law to the entire universe, first proposed in the 1850s, led to the prediction of a future 'heat death', where all life has ceased and all organization dissolved. In the late 1860s it was pointed out that, as a consequence of the heat death scenario, the universe can have existed only for a finite period of time. According to the 'entropic creation argument', thermodynamics warrants the conclusion that the world once begun or was created. It is these two scenarios, allegedly consequences of the science of thermodynamics, which form the core of this book. The heat death and the claim of cosmic creation were widely discussed in the period 1870 to 1920, with participants in the debate including European scientists, intellectuals and social critics, among them the physicist William Thomson and the communist thinker Friedrich Engels. One reason for the passion of the debate was that some authors used the law of entropy increase to argue for a divine creation of the world. Consequently, the second law of thermodynamics became highly controversial. In Germany in particular, materialists and positivists engaged in battle with Christian - mostly Catholic - scholars over the cosmological consequences of thermodynamics. This heated debate, which is today largely forgotten, is reconstructed and examined in detail in this book, bringing into focus key themes on the interactions between cosmology, physics, religion and ideology, and the public way in which these topics were discussed in the latter half of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century.

The laws of thermodynamics drive everything that happens in the universe. From the sudden expansion of a cloud of gas to the cooling of hot metal, and from the unfurling of a leaf to the course of life itself - everything is directed and constrained by four simple laws. They establish fundamental concepts such as temperature and heat, and reveal the arrow of time and even the nature of energy itself. Peter Atkins' powerful and compelling introduction explains what the laws are and how they work, using accessible language and virtually no mathematics. Guiding the reader from the Zeroth Law to the Third Law, he introduces the fascinating concept of entropy, and how it not only explains why your desk tends to get messier, but also how its unstoppable rise constitutes the engine of the universe.

Landmark study discusses Einstein's theory, extends thermodynamics to special and general relativity, and also develops the applications of relativistic mechanics and thermodynamics to cosmological models.

The second law of thermodynamics is an example of the fundamental laws that govern our universe and is relevant to every branch of science exploring the physical world. This reference summarizes knowledge and concepts about the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. A verbatim explanation of chemical thermodynamics is presented by the author, making this text easy to understand for chemistry students, researchers, non-experts, and educators.