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The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a beast. As a PhD student I was given from time to time letters from people who claimed that they invented perpetual motion

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a beast. As a PhD student I was given from time to time letters from people who claimed that they invented perpetual motion machine (University was obliged to provide answers for letters and obviously all the effort was thrown on poor PhD candidates). Some of those invention were breaking energy conservation principle - those were easy. But there were some really ingenious ideas how to construct perpetual motion machine that was breaking II Law of Thermodynamics in a rather tricky way. Proving incorrectness was a nightmare sometimes. Funny times!

jpmattia 6y ago
> in a rather tricky way. Any particularly memorable ones? From my bag: A friend's husband collared me at an all-weekend outing with some crazy contraption idea of lawnmower engines & generators & other junk. It was a fairly long-winded description followed by a question of "why wouldn't this work?" My reply was simply: Because the gods are out to fuck you over. He just looked into the air and said: I can accept that. The wife (MIT educated): How come when I explain the 2nd law forbids it from working, you keep asking, but when he tells you the gods are out to fuck you over, you accept it? PS. What university requires answers for such letters?
siver_john 6y ago
As an undergraduate in physics I was spared from any absurdity like that, but I knew professors got emails and the like for those types of things. However, the most amusing thing that I heard about was that our department (Physics and Astronomy) would get calls inquiring about their horoscope. Which caused us every year to change our name to Department of Psychics and Astrology on Halloween.
currymj 6y ago
what university was this where there was an obligation to respond to letters from cranks?? how did that policy get put into place, that’s fascinating.

jpmattia 6y ago

> in a rather tricky way. Any particularly memorable ones? From my bag: A friend's husband collared me at an all-weekend outing with some crazy contraption idea of lawnmower engines & generators & other junk. It was a fairly long-winded description followed by a question of "why wouldn't this work?" My reply was simply: Because the gods are out to fuck you over. He just looked into the air and said: I can accept that. The wife (MIT educated): How come when I explain the 2nd law forbids it from working, you keep asking, but when he tells you the gods are out to fuck you over, you accept it? PS. What university requires answers for such letters?

siver_john 6y ago

As an undergraduate in physics I was spared from any absurdity like that, but I knew professors got emails and the like for those types of things. However, the most amusing thing that I heard about was that our department (Physics and Astronomy) would get calls inquiring about their horoscope. Which caused us every year to change our name to Department of Psychics and Astrology on Halloween.

currymj 6y ago

what university was this where there was an obligation to respond to letters from cranks?? how did that policy get put into place, that’s fascinating.