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Minesweeper thermodynamics

(oscarcunningham.com)
206 points robinhouston | 5 comments | 01 Sep 25 16:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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kens ◴[04 Sep 25 03:48 UTC] No.45123344[source]▶
The article discusses Boltzmann's formula exp(-E/kT). I was recently looking at the same formula in the context of semiconductors and I realized that Boltzmann's constant k is only needed because temperature uses bad units. If we measured temperature in energy instead of degrees, then Boltzmann's constant drops out. For instance, you could express room temperature as 25 meV (milli electron volts) or 2444 joules/mole and the constant disappears. Likewise, the constant in the ideal gas law disappears if you measure temperature as energy rather than degrees Kelvin. In other words, degrees Kelvin is a made-up unit that should be abandoned. (I'm not sure I believe this, but I don't see a flaw.)
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donovanr ◴[04 Sep 25 04:09 UTC] No.45123470[source]▶
Yes! Units are up to you (with some constraints)! Physicists do this in practice a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units
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1. cperciva ◴[04 Sep 25 04:50 UTC] No.45123691[source]▶
Physicists also sometimes deal with inverse temperature aka "coldness".
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2. jabl ◴[04 Sep 25 08:22 UTC] No.45124946[source]▶
This is to an extent a party trick to befuddle lay people. Physicists know perfectly well that temperature is not a well-defined concept out of equilibrium. And when in a population inversion experiment when "temperature" is determined to be negative (or "beyond infinite" if you will) it arises because for a short while you have a non-Boltzmannian distribution.
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3. OscarCunningham ◴[04 Sep 25 08:42 UTC] No.45125077[source]▶
I don't think they were talking about negative temperature, they just mean that sometimes the convenient quantity to work with is β = 1/T.
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4. jabl ◴[04 Sep 25 09:57 UTC] No.45125485{3}[source]▶
Oh, right, yes. But that's just because 1/T occurs in many formulas and thus it's often convenient to work with it instead. No exciting new physics hiding there. ;)
5. cperciva ◴[04 Sep 25 14:07 UTC] No.45127442{3}[source]▶
Right, using beta is more convenient and also it's better behaved since it doesn't have the weird "goes to infinity then comes back from negative infinity as you keep increasing it" behaviour.