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Name: Aaron
Status: student
Age: 16
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 2000-2001
Question:
With respect to the laws of thermodynamics, is potential energy on the same footing as kinetic energy? That is, if a potential source performs some action through some conversion to kinetic energy, will a portion of its originally potential energy be lost as entropy? An example might be the strong bonds within a hadron or meson. Also, are fumdamental particles subject to the same idea? Thanks.

Replies:
Thermodynamics describes the statistics of large numbers of particles with a large number of degrees of freedon. It doesn't make sense to try to apply it to individual particles or very simple systems.

Tim Mooney


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