"In the year 1900 Max Planck wrote... E = hv, where E is the energy of a light wave, v is its , and h is... . It said that energy and frequency are the same thing measured in different units. Planck's constant gives you a rate of exchange for for converting frequency into energy... But in the year 1900 this made no physical sense. Even Plank himself did not understand it. ...Now Hawking has written down an equation which looks rather like Planck's equation... S = kA, where S is the entropy of a black hole, A is the area of its surface, and k is... Hawking's constant. Entropy means roughly the same thing as the of an object. ...Hawking's equation says that entropy is really the same thing as area. The exchange rate... is given by Hawking's constant... But what does it really mean to say that entropy and area are the same thing? We are as far away from understanding that now as Planck was of understanding quantum mechanics in 1900. ...[T]his equation will emerge as a central feature of the still unborn theory which will tie together gravitation and quantum mechanics and thermodynamics."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions: Gifford Lectures given at Aberdeen, Scotland April-November 1985 (1988) pp. 21-22 (paperback, 1989).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thermodynamics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thermodynamics
55 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thermodynamics →
Related Quotes
"If two systems are both in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each ot…"
"In a closed system (i.e. there is no transfer of matter into or out of the system), the first law states that the cha…"
"When two initially isolated systems are combined into a new system, then the total internal energy of the new system,…"
"When two initially isolated systems in separate but nearby regions of space, each in thermodynamic equilibrium with i…"
"According to the second law, in a reversible heat transfer, an element of heat transferred, \delta Q, is the product …"
"A system's entropy approaches a constant value as its temperature approaches absolute zero."
"Every mathematician knows it is impossible to understand an elementary course in thermodynamics."
"In order to consider in the most general way the principle of the production of motion by heat, it must be considered…"
"Machines which do not receive their motion from heat... can be studied even to their smallest details by the mechanic…"
"Isn’t thermodynamics considered a fine intellectual structure, bequeathed by past decades, whose every subtlety only …"