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Great article! I'm almost done with a PhD in physics and statistical physocs is still the hardest thing for me to wrap my mind around. Even more so than quant

• atrettel 6y ago
  Thermodynamics as a subject is taught in two entirely different traditions, the engineering tradition and the physics tradition. I've taken courses in both traditions and I personally find that physics tradition explains a lot more. When I took engineering thermodynamics, the focus was on solving "practical" problems, and I never got a good understanding of what entropy was. The point of the class was not to teach physics, though. The point was to get engineers to solve thermodynamics problems (like heat engines and cycles). The primary thing I remember from that course was looking up things in the tables in the back of the book and converting between Btus and other units. I only understood entropy after taking a statistic physics course. The course's explanation of entropy is basically the same explanation as the article. The point of that class was entirely different than the engineering course, so the professor spent several lectures going into detail about what entropy is and how it relates to everything else. I never had to do any table lookups in that class too. Side note: you can easily tell what tradition you were taught in based on the sign convention in the first law of thermodynamics you learned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics#Sign_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics#Si...