Ask me about thermodynamics....

[Jamie123]

"Well OK: Please will you explain the Born-Haber cycle for the formation solid barium chloride?"

"Ummm....well, there's something called the Second Law of Thermodynamics that..."

"I may have heard about it. Now about the Born-Haber cycle..."

"Well the Second Law says that entropy cannot..."

"We're not talking about entropy, we're talking about the Born-Haber cycle. You know, for calculating lattice enthalpy..."

"It's pronounced 'entropy'. You see the Second Law states that..."

"...entropy is pronounced 'entropy'. Enthalpy is pronounced 'enthalpy'..."

"Well I don't know about enthalpy, but accoerding to the Second Law entropy always..."

"You don't know about enthalpy? And you're asking me to ask you about thermodynamics?"

"Look...have you ever read the Bible?"

"Yes, thank you!"

 

[JohnsonJones]

I'm not certain of the conversation (was this a conversation you had with someone?), but

ΔH_f = V+1/2B+IE_M+EA_X+U_L

but Why that led to the conversation as it did, I do not know, and in fact, in regards to enthalpy it is only used in purely ionic compounds in regards to lattice enthalpy specifically.

This really doesn't have much to do with Thermodynamics per se, unless you are a chemist.  If one is wearing the shirt, I'd imagine it is dealing with one who is a physicist, in which case they probably have no idea why you'd be asking about the Born-Haber cycle in relation to Thermodynamics, UNLESS you were asking in regards to entropy vs. energy...etc...etc...etc.

By the way, I'm not a physicist, I'm a historian.  I did NOT get an A in chemistry all those years ago when I took it.

As I said, I don't get the post above...is it supposed to be a joke, or is this an incident that happened?  Sorry, it probably went over my head.

[Jamie123]

11 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

As I said, I don't get the post above...is it supposed to be a joke, or is this an incident that happened?  Sorry, it probably went over my head.

Neither really - it's just my rather dismal attempt at satire. The point I'm making (I suppose) is that many people, instead of grappling with the vast mystery of God, creation etc. are content with trite answers that they themselves don't really understand.

For example at our Bible study group last night, our vicar was talking about the great difficulty he has always had with Genesis 22 - how hard he found it that Abraham should really have thought God intended him to kill Isaac, and how dissatisfying were the standard answers and explanations people give. ("That's the absolute faith we should strive for" etc.)

I had to agree with him. I haven't missed the parallel between this and the Atonement and I'm also well aware of Hebrews 11. I did bring that up, but I can't honestly say that if God told me to murder my own child I'd consider it a "good thing" whatever assurances He'd made to me beforehand.

Perhaps that means I'm not a man of faith. But when IS terrorists do essentially the same thing at God's command (as they see it) are they the true men of faith? (It's no use me saying that their God is a false God, because they could fire exactly the same claim back at me. And when they act according to their own understanding of God, are they really doing anything different from Abraham?)

I think that I (and most other people if they're completely honest) have as much understanding of what's really going on here as the average creationist who uses the Second Law to "prove" creationism has of the real science of thermodynamics. But in many ways that is the glory of God.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Jamie123