The logic of modern physicsBridgman, P. W. (Percy Williams)
Philosophy
The logic of modern physics
Bridgman, P. W. (Percy Williams)
Physics -- Philosophy
Finally, we emphasize a fact already implicitly mentioned, namely, that
no physical significance can be directly given to flow of heat, and
there are no operations for measuring it. All we can measure are
temperature distributions and rates of rise of temperature. As at
present defined, a heat current is a pure invention, without physical
reality, for any determined heat flow may always be modified by the
addition of a solenoidal vector, with change in no measurable quantity.
If someone states that throughout all space there is a uniform heat
current of 10^6 cal./cm.^2 sec. in the direction of Polaris, no disproof
can be given, for such a stream is solenoidal, and as much heat flows
out of every closed surface in unit time as flows in. Such a solenoidal
flow is meaningless in terms of operations; we could give meaning to
such a flow only in terms of some slight modification of the solenoidal
condition introduced by the measuring instrument. In all ordinary
conditions the flow of heat given by the simple relation q = k Grad t
corresponds exactly to what our atomic pictures lead to expect in those
cases where the details of the picture can be worked out. But there may
be cases where it is advantageous to supplement the ordinary heat flow
(= k Grad t) by the pure fiction of a solenoidal flow, because in this
way it may be possible to account for new phenomena which appear when
the solenoidal conditions are slightly departed from. Thus if in a
conductor at uniform temperature carrying a steady electric current we
say that a heat current is also flowing proportional to the electric
current and therefore solenoidal, we may provide the possibility for a
simple correlation of phenomena found under those more complicated
conditions when an electric current flows in a conductor of non-uniform
temperature in a magnetic field. If it should turn out that the heat
current is _uniquely_ determined by considerations of this character,
then we have taken the first step away from the pure formalism which
this sort of thing otherwise is in the direction of giving physical
reality to the invention of "heat current."
There are other interesting questions of a fundamental thermodynamic
character, such for example, as whether the entropy concept has any
general significance apart from the scale of our measuring instruments,
and what is the operational significance of applying thermodynamic
concepts to radiation, but we shall not consider these questions here.
ELECTRICAL CONCEPTS
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