Abstract
DR. AUERBACH no doubt undertook a very difficult task when he endeavoured to popularise the exact significance underlying the expressions “energy” and “entropy,” and the relations subsisting between them, and it is not easy to say how far he has succeeded in making himself intelligible to an unscientific audience. Doubtless, of energy everyone believes himself to be more or less well informed, but of entropy, though perhaps not really more difficult of apprehension, yet from its less familiar use very great perplexity and uncertainty seem to exist. We can only hope that the author dissipated some of the clouds which hover around this intricate subject. The somewhat fanciful title of “The Mistress of the World and her Shadow” which is attached to the address leads one to expect a more picturesque and imaginative treat ment than the subject receives. One looks naturally for a new set of metaphors and illustrations by which a rather dry subject may be illuminated and its treatment rendered more entertaining, but one does not find much that is new or very appropriate, though of course the matter is sound, and doubtless as a popular address the lecture was very effective.
Die Weltherrin und ihr Schatten. Ein Vortrag über Energie und Entropie.
Von Dr. Felix Auerbach, Prof. a. d. Universität Jena. Pp. 56. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1902.) Price Mk. 1.20.
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Die Weltherrin und ihr Schatten. Ein Vortrag über Energie und Entropie . Nature 66, 414 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/066414a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/066414a0