Author Topic: Perfective and imperfective adjectives?  (Read 10233 times)

Offline Daniel

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Re: Perfective and imperfective adjectives?
« Reply #15 on: October 29, 2014, 05:52:34 PM »
Is that still heat then in the way we talk about "hot" or is that actually colder in a naive sense?
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Offline freknu

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Re: Perfective and imperfective adjectives?
« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2014, 03:07:19 AM »
Is that still heat then in the way we talk about "hot" or is that actually colder in a naive sense?

Heat is the transfer of energy, so it will always flow from −0 K (hot) to +0 K (cold).

Think of it this way.

+0 K, a uniform state of minimum entropy. All individual atoms possess the same minimum energy state. As you add energy the entropy increases, the average temperature increases, and the possible range of energy states of individual atoms increases.

−0 K, a uniform state of maximum entropy. all individual atoms possess the same maximum energy state. This because the system is entropy-saturated, meaning that entropy can no longer grow. As you add energy the entropy decreases, the average temperature decreases, and the possible range of energy states of individual atoms increases.

+0 K is the "coldest" possible uniform energy state; entropy (and temperature) increases as energy is added to the system.
+∞ K is the "hottest" possible non-uniform energy state; range of energy states increases as energy is added to the system.
−∞ K is the "coldest" possible non-uniform energy state; range of energy states increases as energy is added to the system.
−0 K is the "hottest" possible uniform energy state; entropy (and temperature) decreases as energy is added to the system.

Moving towards +∞ K means that the system is growing "hotter" and more "non-uniform". There is no limit to entropy, so the more energy you add, the "hotter" and more "non-uniform" it becomes, growing towards +∞ K.

If, however, a system has an entropy limit, it can become saturated. As you add energy the system will slowly become more uniform, reaching a maximum entropy, and once it is fully saturated all individual atoms are in a uniform (maximum) energy state. Greater "heat" and greater "temperature" means greater "entropy", so for a entropy-saturated system, any energy beyond the entropy limit cannot do any work, and entropy will actually decrease, thus also "heat" and "temperature".

Also, I believe that kinetic theory only applies to gases, maybe? Maybe solids as well, but once it gets hot enough it's no longer gas, it becomes plasma. As it gets even hotter, who knows, maybe you get a soup of quarks and electrons.

However, using kinetic theory, +0 K is a "cold" state where all atoms are "motionless" while −0 K is a "hot" state where all atoms are "motionless". Adding energy to either system will give the atoms "motion" — but for +0 K the entropy will increase, and for −0 K the entropy will decrease.

Oh, and I think this is strictly a quantum mechanical phenomenon, so you couldn't get a quantity of water with a negative temperature, I believe.

Even though I like physics, I wouldn't dare say I'm a physicist :) And unfortunately there is no proper physicist around to properly explain it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature

Offline Daniel

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Re: Perfective and imperfective adjectives?
« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2014, 11:59:16 PM »
I (vaguely) understand the physics perspective. I was wondering more about the lexical/philosophical semantics of "hot" or "cold" in natural language. Do those properties still apply at such temperature ranges? Are these words about entropy? Human sensory perception?

This is similar to the usage of the word "water" before we knew its chemical composition as H20. For whatever reason, speakers seem to be content considering H20 to be water, because it apparently already meant that. But in another case it might not.

This is obviously a tangential point anyway, but I do wonder whether physics has anything to do with the lexicon (outside of technical terms, anyway).


(There's also the detail that incredibly hot materials feel cold to the touch. I don't think that's really what "cold" means though in that we do have some understanding (I think in the lexicon/language) of what "heat" is, even if we can't perceive it.)
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