A Few Thoughts On Ender's Game

On the recommendation of a friend, I recently finished reading Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game. This book has a lot to recommend it.  So much so that I have heard that it has been used in actual military education classes alongside Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz.  I found Card's anticipation of the Internet to be visionary, and there were twists in the plot of the book that I did not expect. There was one element of the story that bothered me, however.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics

The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that it is impossible to reach absolute zero in a finite number of steps. A shortcut way to remember the law is "you cannot leave the game."  An alternate shortcut to remember the law is "let's keep score" which is based on the fact that the third law provides the foundation for thermodynamic temperature scales.

Capitalism

Yes, I am a capitalist.  Actually, I support a mixed-market economy, but my point is that I am not opposed to profiting from my blogging, if is possible. For some time, I have been getting enough page views to make me wonder whether it's worth allowing advertisements.

I realize the pitfalls.  I am especially sensitive to the potential for inappropriate ads.  If you are a regular reader and have a strong opinion about advertisements on blogs, please let me know.  I am going to experiment with it.  If you see ads that seem inappropriate, please let me know.

Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard

From the earliest days of their movement, Holocaust deniers have largely centred their arguments on the Auschwitz death camp. Surveying the literature which makes up so-called Holocaust Revisionism,  the obsession with Auschwitz is undoubtedly one of its defining features. Since the early 1990s, with the advent of the modern world-wide web, Holocaust deniers have taken to the internet to try and argue their case. Until recently, the ensuing online debates between advocates of Holocaust denial and their critics have likewise focused on Auschwitz.


My friends at the Holocaust Controversies Blog have written an article that focuses on the Operation Reinhard camps, Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor, and the attempts to deny the reality of the murder at those camps by Holocaust deniers, Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, and Thomas Kues. They dedicated this work to the memory of Harry W. Mazal OBE.


The work is entitled, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard: A Critique of the Falsehoods of, Mattogno, Graf, and Kues. 

The Heat Death of the Universe

This post is part of a series, Nonsense and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The previous post is entitled Time's Arrow. The previous post is essential to understanding this post.

In most of the discussion of nonsense in this series, the nonsense stems from a poor understanding of physics.  This post introduces some nonsense that must be taken seriously.  Perhaps, this nonsense, also stems ultimately from a poor understanding of physics.  The people with the poor understanding this time, however, are some of the most brilliant minds in physics.

The School-Book Story

This discussion starts with the school-book story of the heat death of the universe.  By calling it the "school-book" story I do not mean to pooh-pooh it too much.  In fact, it is most likely the correct story.  Much of this post, however, will focus on caveats and complications to the story as it is usually told.

In thermodynamics, the universe is defined as the system and its surroundings.  We have seen that the second law requires that for any change the total entropy of the system and the surroundings must increase or stay the same.  As time goes by, therefore, the entropy of the universe increases.

Time's Arrow

This post is part of a series, Nonsense and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The previous post is entitled The Second Law, Microscopic Reversibility, and Small Systems. The previous post is essential to understanding this post.

Why does time move forward instead of backward? In the spatial dimensions, one can move left or right, up or down, backward, or forward.

Time, on the other hand, has a preferred direction. Why is that so? The underlying physics does not seem to have a preferred direction, but time does.

The Second Law, Microscopic Reversibility, and Small Systems

This post is part of a series, Nonsense and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The previous post is entitled The Second Law, Radiative Transfer, and Global Warming.

On a small scale, individual physical events are reversible; yet on a macroscopic scale, it is not so.  I used to find that confusing.  I'd like to try to cut through some of the confusion.  In so doing, the underlying mechanism of the second law may become clearer.

Figure Source (Monopoly by Hasbro).