<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Jun 18, 2025, at 0:53, Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2@gmail.com> wrote:</div><div><div class="elementToProof" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div><div class="elementToProof" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Pieter, I have had a lifetime of experiences with experts who agree that the answer to my question is so obvious that I should not be asking it, but who, when brought together, cannot agree on an answer. </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Many people are bad teachers. And for many subjects, canons of really terrible ways to teach have sprung up. Thermodynamics is certainly one of those subjects. </div><div><br></div><div>There is a weird pathology in science teaching, which reminds me of both-siderism in journalism. It seems to consist of the premise that to be “empirical”, one treats the most un-parsed phenomenology from brute facts as things to be memorized, after which one stops. That is instantiated in the language Frank forwarded from Gemini, and in that one aspect I am not a fan of it. Fermi’s little 1953 book on thermodynamics is written adamantly in that style too. The point of understanding is to put together a system in which one does not aspire to being merely a lookup table of brute facts. I said the Gemini presentation of entropy as a state variable is at least correct (for the limited scope to which it refers) insofar as it admits an understanding. But that presentation doesn’t give most of the concept structure — which means a much fuller operational account of just what one is doing — to offer a route to the actual understanding itself. </div><div><br></div><div>On the other hand, there is that old Persian saying “There are no bad hosts; only bad guests.” I think coined in 1979.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="elementToProof" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">That's what I mean by the emperor's new clothes paradigm. Is "entropy" such a situation? </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>No.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="elementToProof" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Or does "entropy" a code for disparate conceptions? </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>One needs to ask a clearer question. There is an aspect-centered way to state what one is after in constructing an entropy, in which the concept is the same, though many distinct constructions arise in distinct circumstances. Much of this I have written repeatedly in posts over the years. But please proceed….</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="elementToProof" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">If so, is that OK? </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If A then B only has consequences if A. But in this case, not A.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="elementToProof" style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; font-family: Aptos, Aptos_EmbeddedFont, Aptos_MSFontService, Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Or is it a disequilibrium, a tension that must in time be relaxed?</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Of course, I have no idea what gloss of disequilibrium you intend. But in the interpretation “is there no coherent concept behind the name?”, I can answer:</div><div><br></div><div>No. There is a coherent concept behind the name.</div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, as earlier; please proceed.</div><div><br></div><div>Eric</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br></body></html>