Talk:Minimum total potential energy principle
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Claim about entropy unsupported in body of article
[edit]In the introduction:
- The tendency to minimum total potential energy is due to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of a system will maximize at equilibrium. Given two possibilities - a low heat content and a high potential energy, or a high heat content and low potential energy, the latter will be the state with the highest entropy, and will therefore be the state towards which the system moves
While this is undoubtedly true, it is not supported in the main text of the article.
So it's also left more or less unexplained -- that is, not expressed not argued in formal and rigorous language, only in the language of the introduction.
As a result, it's hard to see why it isn't the same as principle of minimum energy, even though the introduction claims they are different. In particular, the difference in the way they are thermodynamically coupled to the environment could be made more precise. For example, is one a minimization of entropy S and the other of energy U, where in yet other problems one minimizes Helmholtz, Gibbs, or enthalpy?
Reference to synergy
[edit]The source which supposedly shows that the word synergy is used in this context is in German, which doesn't demonstrate that synergy this way in English. I would be happy to discuss the edits here so that we can attempt to reach a consensus. If there is no objection, I'll revert the edits later today. Natsirtguy (talk) 22:22, 12 May 2015 (UTC)