Gravity, Entropy, and Cosmology: In Search of Clarity

Details Gravity, Entropy, and Cosmology: In Search of Clarity Gravity, Entropy, and Cosmology: In Search of Clarity

2009-07-03

arxiv.org/abs/0907.0659v1

British Journal for Philosophy of Science 61 (2010) pp. 513-540

Physics

Condensed Matter

Statistical Mechanics

25 pages

Scientific paper

I discuss the statistical mechanics of gravitating systems and in particular its cosmological implications, and argue that many conventional views on this subject in the foundations of statistical mechanics embody significant confusion; I attempt to provide a clearer and more accurate account. In particular, I observe that (i) the role of gravity \emph{in} entropy calculations must be distinguished from the entropy \emph{of} gravity, that (ii) although gravitational collapse is entropy-increasing, this is not usually because the collapsing matter itself increases in entropy, and that (iii) the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not owe its validity to the statistical mechanics of gravitational collapse.

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