especially, the second law emerged as universally valid tools for our conception of
nature, in such technical-scientific toolbox one can barely find energetics.
Energeticism, though, is more successful with its metaphysical ambition.
Because of a residual resistance to scientific materialism among many, the energetic
worldview has retained supporters, notable ones include E. Mach, A.J. Lotka, H.T.
Odum. One may surmise that the collapse of its technical-scientific ambition should
have invalidated its metaphysical claim. The truth is that even though metaphysics
is distasteful to many, the energetic worldview legitimizes the widely popular
narrative that the world runs on energy conversion, a legitimization stronger than
Kelvin’s self-evident General Conclusions can provide. Because of that connection,
both the metaphysics and popular narrative are active currently.
Evidence for the latter can be found in bestseller books. One example is the 2017
bestseller, Energy and Civilization, A History [21] by Vaclav Smil. In the book, he
wrote, “The history of successive civilizations, the largest and most complex
organisms in the biosphere, has followed this course. Human dependence on ever
higher energy flows can be seen as an inevitable continuation of organismic evolution. Wilhelm Ostwald was the first scientist to expand explicitly the second law
of energetics to all and any action…” [21: 2]. Ostwald, Lotka, and Odum’s influence lives on for popularizing energy conversion doctrine. This chapter gives a
critical assessment of this doctrine and offers a entropy centric doctrine in its place.
8.2 Laws of Balance and the Calculation of Entropy
Production
The formulation of a new theory of heat can be facilitated with the modern formalism of the second law, which was presented in Sect. 6.4. It is reproduced here in
the context of presenting both the first law and the second law together.
The modern formalism of the Brussels School of thermodynamics [22–24] treats
entropy as a balance quantity and its production to be always positive. Therefore,
both the treatment of energy (the first law) and that of entropy (the second law) bear
a similar pattern.
We first consider the first law as the law of the balance of energy for a system
dE ¼ d E E þ d G E
Because energy can be neither generated (nor destroyed), the energy generation
term becomes
d G E ¼ 0
and, the energy exchange exists in two forms, i.e.,
d E E ¼ dQ À dW
194
8 The Second Law: The Entropy Growth Potential Principle …
nature, in such technical-scientific toolbox one can barely find energetics.
Energeticism, though, is more successful with its metaphysical ambition.
Because of a residual resistance to scientific materialism among many, the energetic
worldview has retained supporters, notable ones include E. Mach, A.J. Lotka, H.T.
Odum. One may surmise that the collapse of its technical-scientific ambition should
have invalidated its metaphysical claim. The truth is that even though metaphysics
is distasteful to many, the energetic worldview legitimizes the widely popular
narrative that the world runs on energy conversion, a legitimization stronger than
Kelvin’s self-evident General Conclusions can provide. Because of that connection,
both the metaphysics and popular narrative are active currently.
Evidence for the latter can be found in bestseller books. One example is the 2017
bestseller, Energy and Civilization, A History [21] by Vaclav Smil. In the book, he
wrote, “The history of successive civilizations, the largest and most complex
organisms in the biosphere, has followed this course. Human dependence on ever
higher energy flows can be seen as an inevitable continuation of organismic evolution. Wilhelm Ostwald was the first scientist to expand explicitly the second law
of energetics to all and any action…” [21: 2]. Ostwald, Lotka, and Odum’s influence lives on for popularizing energy conversion doctrine. This chapter gives a
critical assessment of this doctrine and offers a entropy centric doctrine in its place.
8.2 Laws of Balance and the Calculation of Entropy
Production
The formulation of a new theory of heat can be facilitated with the modern formalism of the second law, which was presented in Sect. 6.4. It is reproduced here in
the context of presenting both the first law and the second law together.
The modern formalism of the Brussels School of thermodynamics [22–24] treats
entropy as a balance quantity and its production to be always positive. Therefore,
both the treatment of energy (the first law) and that of entropy (the second law) bear
a similar pattern.
We first consider the first law as the law of the balance of energy for a system
dE ¼ d E E þ d G E
Because energy can be neither generated (nor destroyed), the energy generation
term becomes
d G E ¼ 0
and, the energy exchange exists in two forms, i.e.,
d E E ¼ dQ À dW
194
8 The Second Law: The Entropy Growth Potential Principle …