arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Radhakrishnamurty Padyala.
We show in this note that Gibbs paradox arises not due to application of thermodynamic principles, whether classical or statistical or even quantum mechanical, but due to incorrect application of mathematics to the process of mixing of ideal gases.
Caratheodory's axiomatic formulation of the second law is considered as one of the standard forms of formulation of the law. However, it was mired in advanced mathematics. The formulation was strongly criticized by Max Planck, for it was based on the analysis of adiabatic processes and adiabatic accessibility. A thermodynamic process is said to be possible only if it satisfies both first law and the second law. A process is said to violate the second law only when it satisfies the first law, and violate the second law. We show here that violation of Caratheodory principle of the second law violates the first law itself. In other words, adiabatic inaccessibility arises only as a consequence of violation of the first law. This we demonstrate by assuming, in contradiction to Caratheodory's principle, that the states considered adiabatically inaccessible as adiabatically accessible, and prove that the assumption leads to no paradox - thereby showing that the adiabatic inaccessibility arises as a result of violation of the first law.
Lord Kelvin's postulate is a standard form of statement of the second law of thermodynamics. Caratheodory's principle is also considered as a different form of this law. Landsberg deduced Caratheodory's principle from Kelvin's postulate and Dunning-Davies deduced its converse to show the equivalence of the two principles, and these deductions remained forerunners for later works. Here we show that these deductions are flawed and therefore, invalid. The fallacies in these works arose due to the fact that these authors had taken an inadmissible form of statement of Kevin's postulate and had considered an inappropriate cyclic process, for their deductions. The equivalence between Caratheodory's principle and Kelvin's principle of the second law, therefore, remains unproved.