From owner-biophysics@net.bio.net Fri Jan 02 22:00:00 1998 Path: biosci!daresbury!not-for-mail From: Pentcho Valev Newsgroups: bionet.biophysics Subject: An alternative version of the second law for chemical systems Date: 3 Jan 1998 14:05:21 -0000 Lines: 25 Sender: lpddist@mserv1.dl.ac.uk Distribution: bionet Message-ID: <68lgj1$3mm@mserv1.dl.ac.uk> Original-To: biophys@dl.ac.uk In a posting of 2 January named "What is a reversible chemical reaction" I tried to develop an alternative version of the second law for chemical systems which is in fact used in practice but which contradicts the classical version. I forgot to add that, on 16 December 1997, Jonathan Marder presented an equivalent formulation in a posting named "Definition of work (for Pentcho)". Jonathan Marder wrote:>>>>>>>>>>>>> Pentcho raised the difficulty of defining chemical work. Perhaps the following general definition of work will be useful:- "Work performed on a system is the act of moving that system away from equilibrium". In a sense, this simply restates an aspect of the second law of thermodynamics, so Pentcho will object. On the other hand this definition appears applicable to work in all its forms.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< This definition has extremely interesting implications - I still believe that alternative developments deserve attention, even if they question the validity of what seem to be unquestionable truths. Best regards, Pentcho .