George Augustus Linhart—As a “Widely Unknown”Thermodynamicist

Ewgeni B. Starikov

Institute for Materials Science and Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials, Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany; Department of Physical Chemistry, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

DOI: 10.4236/wjcmp.2012.22018                

Abstract

The name of George Augustus Linhart is in fact “widely unknown”. In effect, he was a Viennese-born USA-American physicist-chemist, partially associated with the Gilbert Newton Lewis’ school of thermodynamics at the University of California in Berkeley. As a lone small boy, he had arrived (from Austria via Hamburg) at New York in 1896, but was officially USA-naturalized only in 1912. He was able to pick up English in the streets of New York and Philadelphia, when occasionally working as a waiter and/or as a tailor, just to somehow survive. But, nonetheless, he could successfully graduate a high school in about one year, and then went to the universities for his further education. After obtaining his BS from the University of Pennsylvania, he could manage getting both MA and then PhD from the Yale University, Kent Chemical Laboratory. George Augustus Linhart was afterwards definitely able to successfully work out the true foundations of thermodynamics and could thus outdistance many famous thermodynamicists of his time and even the later ones. Linhart's view of the Second Law of Thermodynamics was and is extremely fruitful. The interconnection of Linhart's ideas with those of Gilbert Newton Lewis, as well as with the modern standpoints is discussed here in detail.

Keywords

Thermodynamics; Entropy; Energy; Time

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	D. A. Lavis, “Boltzmann, Gibbs, and the Concept of Equilibrium,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 75, No, 5, 2008, pp. 682-696. doi:10.1086/594514
[2]	J. Earman, “The Problem of Irreversibility,” PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1986, pp. 226-233.
[3]	J. Uffink, “Bluff Your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” Studies in Hististory and Philosophy of Mododern Physics, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2005, pp. 305-394. doi:10.1016/S1355-2198(01)00016-8
[4]	J. M. G. Vilar and J. M. Rub1, “Thermodynamics ‘Beyond’ Local Equilibrium,” Proceedings of the National Academy Science, Vol. 94, No. 20, 2001, pp. 11081-11084. doi:10.1073/pnas.191360398
[5]	D. Reguera, J. M. Rubi and J. M. G. Vilar, “The Mesoscopic Dynamics of Thermodynamic Systems,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 109, No. 46, 2005, pp. 21502-21515. doi:10.1021/jp052904i
[6]	J. M. Rubi, “The Long Arm of the Second Law,” Scientific American, Vol. 299, No. 5, 2008, pp. 62-67. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1108-62
[7]	D. A. Lavis, “Boltzmann and Gibbs: An Attempted Reconciliation,” Studies in Hististory and Philosophy of Mododern Physics, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2005, pp. 245-273. doi:10.1016/j.shpsb.2004.11.007
[8]	E. T. Jaynes, “ Gibbs vs Boltzmann Entropies,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 33, No. 5, 1965, pp. 391-398. doi:10.1119/1.1971557
[9]	S. M. Carrol, “The Cosmic Origins of Time's Arrow,” Scientific American, Vol. 299, No. 1, 2008, pp. 48-55. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0608-48
[10]	A. S. Eddington, “Nature of the Physical World,” Mac-Millan, London, 1935.
[11]	G. A. Linhart, “The Relation between Chronodynamic Entropy and Time,” Riverside Junior College, Riverside, 1929.
[12]	I. Müller and W. Weiss, “Entropy and Energy: A Universal Competition,” Springer, Heidelberg, 2005.
[13]	J. D. Lewins, “Engineering Thermodynamics; Frontiers and Foundations,” Nuclear Energy Agency, Paris, 2009.
[14]	Z. Slanina, “Measuring Energy-Entropy Competition and Compensation in Chemical Reactions: A Theoretical Study of the Role of Entropy in the Formation of Van Der Waa,” Thermochimica Acta, Vol. 118, 1987, pp. 79-96. doi:10.1016/0040-6031(87)80072-2
[15]	E. B. Starikov and B. Nordén, “Enthalpy-Entropy Compensation: A Phantom or Something Useful?” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 111, No. 51, 2007, pp. 14431-14435. doi:10.1021/jp075784i
[16]	E. B. Starikov, I. Panas and B. Nordén, “Chemical-to-Mechanical Energy Conversion in Biomacromolecular Machines: A Plasmon and Optimum Control Theory for Directional Work,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 112, No. 28, 2008, pp. 8319-8329. doi:10.1021/jp801580d
[17]	E. B. Starikov, D. Hennig and B. Nordén, “Protein Folding as a Result of ‘Self-Regulated Stochastic Resonance’: A New Paradigm?” Biophysical Review and Letters, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2008, pp. 343-363. doi:10.1142/S1793048008000800
[18]	E. B. Starikov and B. Nordén, “Physical Rationale behind the Nonlinear Enthalpy-Entropy Compensation in DNA Duplex Stability,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 113, No. 14, 2009, pp. 4698-4707. doi:10.1021/jp8089424
[19]	D. Henderson, “Attractive Energy and Entropy or Particle Size: The Yin and Yang of Physical and Biological Science,” Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009, pp. 1-11. doi:10.1007/s12539-008-0001-3
[20]	H. Primas, “Hidden Determinism, Probability, and Time's Arrow,” In: H. Atmanspacher and R. Bishop, Eds., Between Chance and Choice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Determinism, Imprint Academic, Thorverton, 2002, pp. 89-113.
[21]	G. Perelman, “The Entropy Formula for the Ricci Flow and Its Geometric Applications,” 2002, in press.
[22]	K. Martinas and I. Brodszky, “Thermodynamics of Gyula Farkas: A New (Old) Approach,” Periodica Polytechnica, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2000, pp. 17-27.
[23]	B. Bernstein, “Proof of Carathéodory's Local Theorem and Its Global Application to Thermostatics,” Journal of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1960, pp. 222-224. doi:10.1063/1.1703655
[24]	E. C. Zachmanoglou, “Caratheodory's Theorem on the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, Vol. 25, No. 4, 1973, pp. 592-596. doi:10.1137/0125056
[25]	K. C. Valanis, “Irreversibility and Existence of Entropy,” International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1971, pp. 337-360. doi:10.1016/0020-7462(71)90014-X
[26]	J. Lambermont and G. Lebon, “On the Definition of Temperature outside Equilibrium,” Journal of Physics A, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1977, pp. 79-88. doi:10.1088/0305-4470/10/1/018
[27]	E. H. Lieb and J. Yngvason, “The Physics and Mathematics of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” Physics Reports, Vol. 310, No. 1, 1999, pp. 1-96. doi:10.1016/S0370-1573(98)00082-9
[28]	E. T. Jaynes, “The Evolution of Carnot’s Principle,” In: G. J. Erickson, C. R. Smith, Eds., Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods in Science and Enhineering, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1988, pp. 267-282.
[29]	C. G. Chakrabarti and K. De, “Boltzmann-Gibbs Entropy: Axiomatic Characterization and Application,” International Journal of Mathematics & Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2000, pp. 243-251. doi:10.1155/S0161171200000375
[30]	C. G. Chakrabarti and I. Chakrabarti, “Boltzmann Entropy: Probability and Information,” Romanian Journal of Physics, Vol. 52, No. 5-6, 2007, pp. 525-528.
[31]	H. Wilhelm, “Sinn des I Ging,” Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Koln, 1984.
[32]	E. B. Starikov, “Many Faces of Entropy or Bayesian Statistical Mechanics,” Chem-PhysChem, Vol. 11, No. 16, 2010, pp. 3387-3394. doi:10.1002/cphc.201000583
[33]	A. V. Hill, “The Possible Effects of the Aggregation of the Molecules of H?moglobin on Its Dissociation Curves,” Journal of Physiology, Vol. 40, 1910, pp. 4-7.
[34]	H. d’A. Heck, “Statistical Theory of Cooperative Binding to Proteins. The Hill Equation and the Binding Potential,” Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 93, No. 1, 1971, pp. 23-29.
[35]	A. Cornish-Bowden, J.-H. S. Hofmeyr and M. L. Cardenas, “Strategies for Manipulating Metabolic Fluxes in Bio- technology,” Bioorganic Chemistry, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1995, pp. 439-449. doi:10.1006/bioo.1995.1030
[36]	S. Goutelle, M. Maurin, F. Rougier, X. Barbaut, L. Bourguignon, M. Ducher and P. Maire, “The Hill Equation: A Review of Its Capabilities in Pharmacological Modelling,” Fundamental & Clinical Pharmacology, Vol. 22, No. 6, 2008, pp. 633-648. doi:10.1111/j.1472-8206.2008.00633.x
[37]	G. N. Lewis and M. Randall, “Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances,” McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York and London, 1923.
[38]	L. A. Zadeh, “Fuzzy Sets,” Information and Control, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1965, pp. 338-353. doi:10.1016/S0019-9958(65)90241-X
[39]	L. E. Panin, “Homeostatic Determinate Systems and Thermodynamics of Selforganization and Evolution of Material World,” Journal of Modern Physics, Vol. 2, No. 5, 2011, pp. 354-369. doi:10.4236/jmp.2011.25044
[40]	H. Haken, “Advanced Synergetic. Instability Hierarchies of Self-Organizing Systems and Devices,” Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1983.
[41]	G. Nicolis and I. Prigogine, “Self-Organization in Non-equilibrium Systems,” Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1977.
[42]	A. Einstein, “The Herbert Spencer lecture: Delivered at Oxford, 10 June 1933,” Querido Verlag, Amsterdam, 1934.
[43]	R. F. Nau, “De Finetti Was Right: Probability Does Not Exist,” Theory and Decision, Vol. 51, No. 2-4, 2001, pp. 89-124. doi:10.1023/A:1015525808214
[44]	V. A. Antonov and B. P. Kondratyev, “Entropy and Irreversibility in Classical and Quantum Mechanics,” Journal of Modern Physics, Vol. 2, No. 6, 2011, pp. 519-532. doi:10.4236/jmp.2011.26061
[45]	L. F. del Castillo and P. Vera-Cruz, “Thermodynamic Formulation of Living Systems and Their Evolution,” Journal of Modern Physics, Vol. 2, No. 5, 2011, pp. 379-391.
[46]	R. S. Johal, “Universal Efficiency at Optimal Work with Bayesian Statistics,” Physical Review E, Vol. 82, No. 6, 2010, p. 061113. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.82.061113