powerful, yet it is not well understood by students of thermodynamics. As a result,
its powerful significance is not as fully appreciated as that of energy conservation
is: for instance, the meaning of equivalence between heat and work is universally
considered to be a matter of the first law without the appreciation that, in fact, one
cannot have a true comprehension of which without the second law.
For an additional instance, the economic activity of man is often expressed in
terms of production. But, we are unclear about what is really being produced: “For
man is not a producer but only a converter, and for every job of conversion he needs
primary products [matter]. In particular, his power to convert depends on primary
energy…” noted Schumacher in Small is Beautiful [2]. Man can neither produce
(i.e., create) primary matter nor create primary energy: what is produced is not the
matter or energy of a product, but the function of the product in its new form—the
value in the new product system. When secondary energy (or energy carrier) is
“produced” from primary energy, primary energy is merely converted or transformed into secondary energy, a different form of energy of higher value. When an
energy carrier is “consumed” for “producing” a material product, there is no
destruction of energy or creation of mass, but the conversion of the energy carrier
into heat and residual energy in the product and the conversion of raw materials into
the material product of higher value.
What makes any conversion possible is the result of unidirectionality in nature
(i.e., the entropy principle_see Chap. 5), or unidirectionality in energy of various
forms (i.e., the energy principle_see Chap. 4). It should be noted that the energy
principle is subsumed, as will be shown in Chap. 8, under the entropy principle,
thus, not a principle independent from the entropy principle; the energy principle
derives its validity from the principle of universal entropy growth. Without the
entropy principle, no economic activity, no value creation, and no life are possible.
All these and everything else on Earth are the result of the entropy growth.
The essay will suggest that the reason for the second law being not correctly
understood even today is the outcome of the way it was formulated. The law had its
genesis in Carnot’s 1824 paper while the genesis for the first law was the discovery
of the “equivalence principle” by Rumford, Mayer, and Joule over the period from
1798 to 1850. The two competing premises were thought to be competing theories
of heat. Both laws were then simultaneously formulated by Kelvin and by Clausius
when each realized that the apparent conflict between Carnot and Rumford–Mayer–
Joule could be resolved not by determining which theory-of-heat was right and the
other wrong but by according the theory of equivalence principle the status of being
ontologically correct, while finding in Carnot’s treatment (even though the treatment had been based on wrong ontology) an important element that must be
incorporated into the theory. That element concerns the impossibility question,
“what kinds of machines, e.g., PMM of the second kind, are impossible and what
types of thermodynamic processes are ‘forbidden’ in nature?” That theory is, of
course, the mechanical theory of heat (MTH)—the cornerstone of which is the
equivalence principle which became the first law. The second law was the formalization of the necessary element into restrictions in the transformation of heat
into work.
1.1 Heat, Its Two Laws
3
its powerful significance is not as fully appreciated as that of energy conservation
is: for instance, the meaning of equivalence between heat and work is universally
considered to be a matter of the first law without the appreciation that, in fact, one
cannot have a true comprehension of which without the second law.
For an additional instance, the economic activity of man is often expressed in
terms of production. But, we are unclear about what is really being produced: “For
man is not a producer but only a converter, and for every job of conversion he needs
primary products [matter]. In particular, his power to convert depends on primary
energy…” noted Schumacher in Small is Beautiful [2]. Man can neither produce
(i.e., create) primary matter nor create primary energy: what is produced is not the
matter or energy of a product, but the function of the product in its new form—the
value in the new product system. When secondary energy (or energy carrier) is
“produced” from primary energy, primary energy is merely converted or transformed into secondary energy, a different form of energy of higher value. When an
energy carrier is “consumed” for “producing” a material product, there is no
destruction of energy or creation of mass, but the conversion of the energy carrier
into heat and residual energy in the product and the conversion of raw materials into
the material product of higher value.
What makes any conversion possible is the result of unidirectionality in nature
(i.e., the entropy principle_see Chap. 5), or unidirectionality in energy of various
forms (i.e., the energy principle_see Chap. 4). It should be noted that the energy
principle is subsumed, as will be shown in Chap. 8, under the entropy principle,
thus, not a principle independent from the entropy principle; the energy principle
derives its validity from the principle of universal entropy growth. Without the
entropy principle, no economic activity, no value creation, and no life are possible.
All these and everything else on Earth are the result of the entropy growth.
The essay will suggest that the reason for the second law being not correctly
understood even today is the outcome of the way it was formulated. The law had its
genesis in Carnot’s 1824 paper while the genesis for the first law was the discovery
of the “equivalence principle” by Rumford, Mayer, and Joule over the period from
1798 to 1850. The two competing premises were thought to be competing theories
of heat. Both laws were then simultaneously formulated by Kelvin and by Clausius
when each realized that the apparent conflict between Carnot and Rumford–Mayer–
Joule could be resolved not by determining which theory-of-heat was right and the
other wrong but by according the theory of equivalence principle the status of being
ontologically correct, while finding in Carnot’s treatment (even though the treatment had been based on wrong ontology) an important element that must be
incorporated into the theory. That element concerns the impossibility question,
“what kinds of machines, e.g., PMM of the second kind, are impossible and what
types of thermodynamic processes are ‘forbidden’ in nature?” That theory is, of
course, the mechanical theory of heat (MTH)—the cornerstone of which is the
equivalence principle which became the first law. The second law was the formalization of the necessary element into restrictions in the transformation of heat
into work.
1.1 Heat, Its Two Laws
3