Re: heat is a form of energy

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

At 17:32 -0700 9/9/99, David Bowman wrote:
> Regarding:
>
> > > Some
> > > teachers even try to smooth this over by introducing the "flow
> > > of entropy" as a helpful concept!
> >
> > This would not help any understanding of entropy.  Fortunately, I have
> > not encountered this teaching technique.
>
> When I wrote this last comment I meant that I had not encountered
> teachers or professors making an appeal to the flow of entropy to help
> explain the concept of entropy.  I did not mean to suggest or imply that
> textbooks didn't ever use the concept of entropy flow.  However, thermo
> books with an engineering slant tend to use entropy flow a lot more than
> physics-oriented stat mech books though (in spite of Schroeder's cartoon).

All the texts I named before are physics oriented. A book by Herbert
Callen with which I am unfamiliar, but which has been recommended
highly to me by physicist colleagues, goes so far as to define a
vector entropy current density and write continuity equations for it.
Sears, Riedi, and Reif seem to have failed to employ this particular
"aid" to conceptual grasp. All three of them are physically oriented.
I have taught from Reif for three decades without feeling the lack of
that particular concept.

It is clear to me that the concept of entropy flow is very common.
I'm glad you agree with me that it is of no help in teching the
concept. I feel that it can do harm, just as the flow of energy can
do harm if not introduced with proper caveats.

Leigh