Thermodynamics: Energy, Heat, and Their Laws

Who created and checked this page

Correction history

Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 28 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   Refined five physics claims for accuracy: qualified 'the only fundamental law that distinguishes past from future' to note that weak-interaction CP/T violation also breaks time-reversal symmetry at the particle level while the thermodynamic arrow governs everyday irreversibility; clarified entropy as a measure of how energy and matter disperse among microstates rather than simply 'disorder'; corrected the Szilard/Maxwell's demon discussion to reflect that acquiring or measuring information need not carry an unavoidable thermodynamic cost (Bennett, building on Landauer), with the unavoidable cost being erasure; reframed the entropy-explains-memory-and-causation claim as a leading account of the arrow of time rather than a complete settled explanation; and qualified 'greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming solar radiation' to 'largely (though not perfectly) transparent to shortwave solar radiation while strongly absorbing outgoing infrared'. The article's absolute-zero passage was already correctly qualified as classical motion.

   Before

   The article said the second law is the only fundamental law distinguishing past from future, defined entropy as disorder, implied Szilard showed measurement necessarily has a thermodynamic cost, said entropy completely explains memory and causation, and said greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming solar radiation.

   After

   Qualified the time-asymmetry and greenhouse claims, refined the entropy definition, corrected the measurement-versus-erasure cost per Landauer and Bennett, and framed the arrow-of-time account as leading rather than complete.

   Why: These are physics-accuracy refinements: the statements were common simplifications that overstate settled physics. Corrections align them with the standard understanding rather than adding new sources.

   View the full record →

Full contribution timeline

1. Correction 28 July 2026

   Emir Baycan: Refined five physics claims for accuracy: qualified 'the only fundamental law that distinguishes past from future' to note that weak-interaction CP/T violation also breaks time-reversal symmetry at the particle level while the thermodynamic arrow governs everyday irreversibility; clarified entropy as a measure of how energy and matter disperse among microstates rather than simply 'disorder'; corrected the Szilard/Maxwell's demon discussion to reflect that acquiring or measuring information need not carry an unavoidable thermodynamic cost (Bennett, building on Landauer), with the unavoidable cost being erasure; reframed the entropy-explains-memory-and-causation claim as a leading account of the arrow of time rather than a complete settled explanation; and qualified 'greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming solar radiation' to 'largely (though not perfectly) transparent to shortwave solar radiation while strongly absorbing outgoing infrared'. The article's absolute-zero passage was already correctly qualified as classical motion.

   Proof record →