Re:Argonne researchers posit way to locally circumvent Secon...
by beagle3 on Thursday November 03, 2016 @07:58PM
(#12869255)
> The only part of your statement that is still probabilistic is "entropy will not decrease"
The markov/IT version of the 2nd law is a statement about macrostate entropy (taking the entire microstate ensemble for each macrostate), and in that sense it is not probabilistic. See the Cover&Thomas reference I gave earlier for the exact definition. It is indeed different than how it is usually taught in physics, in which the microstates are differentiated.
I guess we both need to be more careful about mathematical definitions in the future ...
Perhaps I have made the same mistake as you, and was thinking about the practical but non-generalized way the second law of thermodynamics is usually taught, which includes concepts like "the system will be in this state". The only part of your statement that is still probabilistic is "entropy will not decrease". That's not really true; it probably won't decrease.
>neither of which gives a prediction
"entropy will not decrease" is a prediction. It is possible (albeit overwhelmingly unlikely over large time scales) that this prediction is sometimes false.