2006-12-13
10:15 at HCI J 574

The thermodynamic approach to sand and the macroscopic Maxwell theory

Mario Liu

Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Tübingen

Starting with Kepler, Newton and the celestial mechanics, the concept of “interacting pair of particles” (such as earth-moon, nucleus-electron, electron-electron) has been the actual building block of our thinking in physics -- both classically and quantum mechanically. Only thermodynamics, born out of the earthy need to make steam engines more efficient, is free from it. In the talk, thermodynamics is given a similarly basic role, in the attempt to arrive at a complimentary, macroscopic view of physics. Two examples, the connection of which to entropy is either ignored or contended, will be considered: jammed granular media and the Maxwell theory.