Chapter 9 of 10All chapters
Chapter 9 of 10
The statistical view
Why the laws are about probability.
Counting arrangements
Temperature and entropy emerge from the statistics of enormous numbers of particles. A gas fills a room because that arrangement is overwhelmingly more likely, not because a law forbids the alternative.
- The second law is a statistical near-certainty rather than a strict prohibition.
- With few particles, violations are common; with 10 to the 23, never observed.
Maxwell's demon
A thought experiment that seems to sort fast and slow particles for free. Resolving it showed that information itself has a thermodynamic cost, which links physics to computing.