Meeting the Entropy Challenge

Proceedings of the International Thermodynamics Symposium in Honor and Memory of Professor Joseph H. Keenan, MIT, October 4-5, 2007

Discussion on "teaching the second law"

This article reports an open discussion that took place during the Keenan Symposium "Meeting the Entropy Challenge" (held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 5, 2007) following the short presentations - each reported as a separate article in the present volume - by Joseph Smith Jr., Howard Butler, Andrew Foley, Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli, Bernhardt Trout, Jeffery Lewins, Enzo Zanchini, and Michael von Spakovsky. All panelists and the audience were asked to address the following questions Why is the second law taught in so many different ways'? Why so many textbooks on thermodynamics? Why so many schools of thought? Some say that thermodynamics is limited to equilibrium, others that it extends to nonequilibrium. How is entropy defined for nonequilibrium states? © 2008 American Institute of Physics

Discussion on "frontiers of the second law"

This article reports an open discussion that took place during the Keenan Symposium "Meeting the Entropy Challenge" (held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 4, 2007) following the short presentations - each reported as a separate article in the present, volume - by Adrian Bejan, Bjarne Andresen, Miguel Rubi, Signe Kjelstrup, David Jou, Miroslav Grmela, Lyndsay Gordon, and Eric Schneider. All panelists and the audience were asked to address the following questions Is the second law relevant when we trap single ions, prepare, manipulate and measure single photons, excite single atoms, induce spin echoes, measure quantum entanglement? Is it possible or impossible to build Maxwell demons that beat the second law by exploiting fluctuations? Is the maximum entropy generation principle capable of unifying nonequilibrium molecular dynamics, chemical kinetics, nonlocal and nonequilibrium. rheology, biological systems, natural structures, and cosmological evolution? Research in quantum computation and quantum information has raised many fundamental questions about the foundations of quantum theory. Are any of these questions related to the second law? © 2008 American Institute of Physics

Competitiveness: From a Dangerous Obsession to a Welfare Creating Ability with Positive Externalities

The attempt to define the term “competitiveness of nations” has reached the phase of decreasing returns. Fortunately, the literature seems to be converging slightly, a tendency, we hope to accelerate. We propose (1) defining competitiveness as “the ability of a country or location to create welfare.” We maintain (2) that a comprehensive evaluation contains an output evaluation and a process evaluation. We claim (3) that the output evaluation (competitiveness achieved) is closely related to a welfare assessment, with a specific slant and stepwise operationalisations. Furthermore, (4) process evaluation (investigating the ability) is related to the analysis of production and technology functions, adding qualitative elements like strategies, and the strengths and weaknesses of a country. This consensus is at variance with the concept of price competitiveness; it sidelines the importance of external balances, while the productivity approach to competitiveness is nested within. Dangerous obsessions and wrong policy conclusions can never be excluded, but are much less likely if we use this approach to competitiveness—as compared to concepts focusing on price competitiveness or on external balances. Specifically, the greater competitiveness of one country must not necessarily go hand in hand with lower competitiveness in other countries. In advanced countries specifically, policies promoting the ability to create welfare will create positive spillovers into other economies. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006competitiveness, welfare evaluation, innovation, Lisbon strategy, F10, F15, F43, O31, O40, O57,