Talk:Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen

Nationalité

Les autres langues (en:, de:) ne lui donne pas la nationalité américaine. J'ai supprimé ce passage. Yann (talk) 17:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Roegen

Does anyone know why Roegen was added to his name? Not a matter of great importance, but one can't help but wonder, and googling has not revealed the answer. Languagehat (talk) 15:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

NGR's AEA Distinguished Fellow Award, faculty Distinguished Professor Award, etc.

My heartiest thanks to whoever was primarily responsible for this article. I've added the 2 major awards named above that Georgescu received. In addition, I took the liberty of adding "statistics" as one of his fields shown in the bio summary box. That's consistent with the numerous mentions of the field in the text of the article, and for decades he taught the Economics Dept.'s legendary 2-semester statistics course required for all students in the econ Ph.D. program. I also took the liberty of amending his faculty rank at Vanderbilt to "professor of economics," vs. just "professor". (At least that's the title he held while I was a grad student there 1970-74.) I apologize for the numerous edits it took for me to get the syntax correct for citing the Web sites that document those 2 awards. I'm not very experienced at entering citations, especially to Web sites, and unfortunately, the "Preview" feature doesn't show how the citation will appear, only the text. Samuelson's preface to NGR's Entropy Law ... Analytical Issues... has a few choice compliments about him that the article should include, and I'll try to get those in soon. --Jackftwist (talk) 22:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the changes done. Thanks. -- Ledjazz (talk) 10:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Stub section "Work"

I added a new section to be expanded. This is a stub of French version of the following section: fr:Nicholas_Georgescu-Roegen#Travaux. Translation needed. -- Ledjazz (talk) 18:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The sources in German

I have added a 'multiple issues' template for the following reasons: The source on Ich, Clausius, die Entropie und die Ökonomen ('I, Clausius, Entropy, and the Economists') by Ulrich Müller-Herold is unreliable and appears to be self-published. It is written in a reflective ironic style, pretending to be autobiographical notes by Rudolf Clausius himself (who died in 1888). Georgescu's proposed fourth law of thermodynamics is only mentioned, and not explained in the article text, leaving the general reader in the dark as to what it is. According to my knowledge, the concept of enthalpy is not generally used in environmental economics. Contrary to what is stated in the article text, entropy always has a clear trend: It is increasing. This is standard physics. According to my best judgement, the text in the last paragraph in the section is nothing but a hoax, and should therefore be deleted altogether. I would like a second opinion on this, though... Gaeanautes (talk) 13:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

• More than a month has passed since I posted the above. Nobody have reacted to it so far. Consequently, I have now deleted the material I find contentious and removed the template. If this deletion is reverted by anybody, please state the reason for the reversal in a post below. Thank you. Gaeanautes (talk) 13:30, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Selected writings

I have deleted the section on 'Selected writings', as the first item in the 'External links' section is a link to a comprehensive (complete?) online bibliography. Gaeanautes (talk) 17:04, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

User Byelf2007's mass deletion of images

On 29 January 2018, User Byelf2007 deleted several of the images in the article. By his own bold claim, these images are only 'marginal stuff', and User Byelf2007 generally prefer to 'keep pictures in article to a minimum'. My own personal view is that these images are far from marginal, and that the amount of pictures in any article should not be kept to a minimum as a MoS guideline. If User Byelf2007 is obsessive about this issue, he is welcome to run an RfC on it here. I have restored most – though not all – of the deleted images. I have these comments on the encyclopedic relevance of retaining the three following images:

• The image on the show trial against the leading members of the National Peasants' Party establishes an important historical context, particularly Georgescu's decision to flee his country.
• The image and the caption on the Breit–Wheeler process qualify the discussion of 'weak' vs. 'strong' sustainability, especially Georgescu's criticism of the former.
• Although Georgescu himself denied the existence of a 'Prometheus III' technology in his own day, the image of solar collectors serves an illustrative purpose. The two images on 'Prometheus I' and 'Prometheus II' are already in place in the article, thereby creating a thematic need for the third image.

End of post. Gaeanautes (talk) 16:43, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

This is fine with me, Gaeanautes, though I will note that there's a middle ground between agreeing with this decision and obsession. Thanks for the valuable input!

Also, please note that I made a minor edit to the solar picture text.

@Byelf2007: It's fine that you're not being obsessive. I have now qualified the image caption on the 'Prometheus III' technology (see diff). Frankly, your question mark looked misplaced to me. I suppose it's a matter of individual judgement how much of the general explanation already available in the article text should also be put in the image captions for extra clarity. Too much copy+paste pedantry is running the risk of creating rather lengthy image captions and tiring the perceptive reader, I say. Please consider how necessary you think this new qualification really is, we can undo it again anytime. However, your initial editorial decision on this issue — deleting the image altogether — is out of the question. (By the way, please remember to sign your posts here.) Gaeanautes (talk) 10:06, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

NPOV in introduction

I had removed what I consider to be overly positive descriptions from the introduction (diff). User:Gaeanautes disagrees and undid the edit. So, let's discuss, starting with one specific point. The word "magnum opus" (links to Masterpiece) clearly conveys a positive tone. Even if a source uses it to describe the subject, it should not appear in the editorial voice. I would like to change this to the neutral "work". Cyrej (talk) 17:48, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with Gaeanautes.

@Cyrej: The very term 'magnum opus' is indeed neutral. The article on the term states that "'Masterpiece', 'magnum opus' ... in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship."[Emphasis added] It is in this particular sense, "the greatest work of a person's career", the term is used in the article. Yes, 'magnum opus' links to 'Masterpiece', but this is only due to the redirect. The simple term 'work' is too weak, imprecise and inadequate to describe Georgescu's magnum opus, so this is a bad suggestion on your part, I say. (Thanks to User Byelf2007 for his kind — although unsigned — support on this.) Gaeanautes (talk) 10:18, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Even if only the "greatest work of a person's career" part of the definition is intended, the term has positive connotations because of its usual use to refer to a creative work of outstanding quality. This is contributing to an overall positive tone of the article. (The positive tone seems really striking to me, although clearly two of you don't perceive it this way. I hope we can understand each other's point of view and come to some agreement, starting with this bit.)

Further uses of the term, as in "his paradigmatic magnum opus", also give the reader the impression that it's being described positively as a work of great importance.

You say the term brings greater precision and a stronger statement than 'work' - what exactly does it say? "greatest work of a person's career" - does that mean best? Longest? Most well known? Received the most positive reception? Most influential? Took the most time to write? A subjective description like "best", "greatest", or "most important" can't be said in wikipedia's editorial voice. Other indicators that this is his main work, like "most influential" or "most widely read", can be written if there is some evidence or concrete example. In any case it would be better to simply state that he wrote this book and then describe how it is seen, rather than imply it with "magnum opus" and all its connotations. CyreJ (talk) 13:10, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

@Cyrej: I think you're plain wrong to assume that a positive encyclopedic (wikipedic) tone always violates the NPOV policy. True, this policy is ordering editors to "... representing fairly, proportionately, and ... without editorial bias ... all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." But what happens when these reliable sources mostly (or exclusively) have something positive to say about the article topic? Then the resulting text in the WP article also ends up having a positive tone, that's what happens! Let me substantiate this point by throwing in some relevant examples. Consider the following quotes from WP article lead sections on three other intellectual giants of the past: Aristotle is, along with Plato, "... considered the 'Father of Western Philosophy', which inherited almost its entire lexicon from his teachings, ..."; Kepler was "a key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution"; Newton is "... widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution". Note that none of the statements quoted are verified directly in the text by any sourcing, which means that the statements are presented in an 'editorial voice' (as you call it). There is nothing wrong with this, as long as the views of the sources in the articles are fairly represented. All in all, positive sources generally transform into positive, yet neutral, WP articles. How else should things work?

I think we're both right on the proper definition of the term 'magnum opus': I stress the point that 'magnum opus' means "the greatest work of a person's career", while you argue that 'magnum opus' may also mean "a work of outstanding creativity [or quality]" (regardless of any person's career). So, what is meant by 'greatest work'?, you go on asking. Well, I'd say that 'greatest work' means 'most influential', like one of your suggestions goes.

Anyway, we shouldn't distract ourselves by presenting our own personal views of the term 'greatest work'. After all, this is not the blogosphere, but a WP talk page. Hence, we should stay on topic and keep focused. What matters here is that several secondary sources confirm the fact that The Entropy Law and the Economic Process is Georgescu's magnum opus, as the following sample shows, covering a time span of almost thirty years: This work was a 'landmark work'; a 'conceptual overturn'; a 'revolutionary contribution'; a 'fundamental contribution'; a 'monumental book'; a 'seminal work'; and his 'most famous work'. I think you should use some time reading through at least some of these sources. The articles by Daly, Gowdy & Mesner, as well as Mayumi are available online by the time of writing, just follow the links from here. If you deem it necessary, a few of the sources could even be referenced in the lead section.

In this connection, do note that I prefer putting as few ref tags as possible in the introduction (lead section), as these tags tend to clutter the text and annoy the general (casual) reader who merely wants a quick overview of the topic. The WP guideline on the issue says that "Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; ...", and furthermore, "It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible." This is the reason why no ref tags are present at all in the very first paragraph in the intro (at least not yet). Please bear this consideration in mind in our discussions.

You recommend that "... it would be better to simply state that he [Georgescu] wrote this book and then describe how it is seen, rather than imply it with 'magnum opus' and all its connotations." But the introduction already contains a description of 'how it is seen'! Thus, the second paragraph opens by the statement: "Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time, and historians of economic thought have proudly proclaimed the ingenuity of his work." Of course, 'his work' may not refer only to his magnum opus in this particular context; but it definitely refers also to his magnum opus, I say.

All in all, I think the first and the second paragraphs in the introduction are carefully balanced already: The first paragraph establishes in a neutral tone that Georgescu is "best known today for his 1971 magnum opus" without providing any sourcing (to avoid clutter); and then the second paragraph opens by paraphrasing some positive descriptions of his work — including the magnum opus — along with some sourcing (to verify the paraphrased descriptions). Stylistically, this is how an ideal encyclopedic exposition in the intro should look like, I say.

That's all for now. Please consider this post carefully before repeating your (tendentious?) view that the term 'magnum opus' carries some positive connotations you don't like. Even better, go find a source claiming that The Entropy Law and the Economic Process was not Georgescu's magnum opus, and then present this new and unique source to me here for closer scrutiny. Thank you.

References

End of post. Gaeanautes (talk) 15:21, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Gaeanautes, thanks for explaining. I am coming around to your point of view regarding 'magnum opus' and the general positive tone - other biography articles have similar introductions. My initial attempt to redo the style of the introduction was far too broad.

However, I think there are still some minor style issues in the introduction, which may have contributed to making the article look unencyclopedic at first glance and prompted my strong reaction. In particular, could you look at the linking of "progenitor" and "main intellectual figure influencing the movement" to articles not directly related to the words.

In the second paragraph, what strikes me is bringing in descriptions of Paul Samuelson ("of the highest rank", "Prominent Keynesian economist and Nobel Prize laureate"), who is not the subject of the article. The effect on me - and perhaps other readers - is only to make me suspicious that the writer is trying to boost up Georgescu-Roegen by association. I would leave this out and and simply link to Paul Samuelson.

I hope you consider these comments even though I have been wrong in the past - I think these corrections would make it a stronger article. CyreJ (talk) 11:18, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

@Cyrej: It's encouraging that we're reaching some agreement here. You've now come around to my way of thinking regarding the term 'magnum opus' and the fact that a positive encyclopedic tone may rest solidly on positive secondary sources without violating the NPOV policy. You've also realized that your initial editorial reaction to the intro text was too rash (disruptive). Hence, the two lessons you've learned here must be:

• Never rely on one's first 'strong reaction' when editing. It's always a good idea to spend some time thinking things over before taking action and start editing. This WP essay may be useful for you to read in this regard.
• Just deleting text because it appears to be biased is usually a bad thing. The piece of advice provided in this WP essay is that it's always better to improve than delete any such text.

In the present context, it would also have been a good idea for you to inspect the article log: If some text has been up and online for years without having caused any substantial editing or any talk page discussions, the text is probably not that bad (unless the page view frequency has remained very low, which is not the case here).

The two links in the intro from 'progenitor' and 'main intellectual figure influencing the movement' leading to other WP articles are both solid, I say. I don't understand why these links are troubling you:

• The term 'progenitor' is largely synonymous with 'father of a scientific field', and Georgescu's name does appear on the list featured in the article being linked to (along with the title of his magnum opus).
• The fact that Georgescu was (and still is) the 'main intellectual figure influencing the degrowth movement' is explained in detail in the article section being linked to, and verified by several reliable and independent secondary sources there.

All in all, these two articles being linked to in the intro are indeed 'directly related to the words' (as you put it).

Several considerations lie behind the thorough account of Paul Samuelson and his endorsement of Georgescu's work in the intro. Consider the following:

• Samuelson was likely the most successful and influential economist in the West in the second half of the 20th century, so he was indeed 'of the highest rank'. Consequently, his endorsement carries great encyclopedic weight.
• Paradigmatically, Samuelson was the leading proponent of the post-WWII mainstream economics in the West that Georgescu criticised so forcefully (or rather, Samuelson's work developed to become the mainstream). Although they were friends — they met each other at Harvard University in the 1930s, where they both had Schumpeter as their teacher — it was rather generous of Samuelson to endorse Georgescu's work in the end. True, the endorsement appeared only after Georgescu's death and after Samuelson's own formal retirement; but still, the endorsement is noteworthy, I say.
• Samuelson's endorsement substantiates and extends the statement made in the beginning of the same paragraph. If we put the first and the last part of the second paragraph in the intro together, the result reads as follows:

“ Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time... ... ...Paul Samuelson professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by posterity instead. ”

In short: Georgescu lived ahead of his time, consequently, posterity may (should) grant him the fame he still deserves. Thus, the paragraph forms a consistent whole, both logically and stylistically (encyclopediawise). True, there's a positive tone to it, but the tone is verified by reliable and notable secondary sources.

• The fact that Samuelson was awarded the Nobel Prize is relevant and provides interesting context, as it succeeds and contrasts with the previous info in the paragraph that Georgescu was not awarded the Prize.

I'm baffled by your view that the 'positive tone' in the description of Samuelson's merits is nothing but an attempt '... to boost up Georgescu by association'. I think you're underestimating the cognitive ability of the average reader here. Surely, most people are able to understand that Samuelson and Georgescu were two different people — although they were friends — whatever their individual merits? I doubt any reader would be naïve enough to infer something like "Samuelson was a great economist; Samuelson and Georgescu were friends; ergo, Georgescu was also a great economist". People are smarter than that — or rather, I prefer to believe so...

No, I have no general intention of 'boosting up Georgescu' in the article, as you boldly suspect me of. Believe me, this scholar doesn't need any such boosting up. I'm getting annoyed that you keep going on not assuming good faith, as you're still being suspicious about what you perceive as a NPOV-violating 'positive tone' in the intro. According to the relevant WP guideline, editors should focus on commenting on content, and refrain from speculating about the motives, intentions and personal beliefs of other editors. In this particular case, it would have been more useful if you had simply stated that "I think the account of Samuelson's endorsement in the intro is undue weight", instead of throwing in the bold accusation that "I'm getting suspicious that you, User Gaeanautes, wrote this stuff in order to boost up Georgescu's reputation — and that's a bad thing to do, so shame on you" (to paraphrase your initial utterance). Being suspicious may sometimes turn out to be wrong, and it's always irrelevant to explicitly state one's suspiciousness or other emotional impulses when communicating with other editors. Just stick to the article text, please.

At this point in our discussions, it would be wise for the both of us to turn our attention to another part of the article where no 'positive tone' is present at all — in order to make it perfectly clear that the article indeed lives up to the WP principle of NPOV: The section on 'Mistakes and controversies' documents Georgescu's mistakes caused by his insufficient understanding of the physical science of thermodynamics. I can tell from your user page that you have a Master of Physics degree, and that you're currently earning yourself a PhD in your field of study. Sehr gut! Your background makes you highly qualified for carrying through a scholarly review of this very section. You could start by reading the following three articles critical of Georgescu's work, listed in descending order of quality (according to my best judgment): The authors are all trained in the natural sciences — physics, engineering — and the articles are all available online by the time of writing. If you're technology-minded, it could also prove to be beneficial if you examined the section on 'Technology assessments in historical perspective' more closely. I wonder what you're making of Georgescu's concept of 'Promethean recipes', past and present. In general, the article as a whole would be improved by some solid working through by an editor trained in the natural sciences...

That's all for now. I think you had better do some homework before leaving your next post here: Please read at least some of the WP essays and guidelines linked to, plus some of the three scholarly articles mentioned before returning. Since you're a PhD student already, you should be in the habit of doing your homework whenever necessary (as in the present situation). Auf Wiederschreiben.

References

End of post. Gaeanautes (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

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Surname

In this revision, User:Gaeanautes added an editorial note to the page noting that Georgescu-Roegen's name was shortened by them to just "Georgescu" for "improved readability of the text and better use of space". However, I don't agree with this decision.

For starters, none of our featured biographies of people with hyphenated surnames use this practice: John Brooke-Little, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Additionally, all except one of the other language editions of this article don't follow this convention either, notably including the Romanian Wikipedia page (which could have indicated some regional practice if it did do so). The exception is the Spanish Wikipedia, but looking at its table of contents, it's clearly a translation of this English version and prior to these additions also included the full surname. Finally, perusing the titles of the sources used on the page itself, none of them include only "Georgescu", so this can't be a case of WP:COMMONNAME and is contrary to usage in reliable sources (a Google search for "Nicholas Georgescu" excluding results containing "Roegen" also comes up empty for the subject).

Regarding the merits of the reasons given in the message itself, I don't see how it would improve readability—personally I find the hyphenated name easier to spot and skip over—and Wikipedia is not a printed page that it has space limitations.

I propose using Georgescu-Roegen's full surname to bring it in line with the article's sources per WP:COMMONNAME, in line with the other-language Wikipedias which use his full name, and in line with our featured article exemplars which also use full surnames. Opencooper (talk) 09:26, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

No response for over a week. I'm going to go ahead per WP:SILENCE. Opencooper (talk) 15:16, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Opencooper: I agree with all of your recent corrections, although with some reservations. To explain, I've always been primarily concerned with text readability (as I perceive it), and not with the massive bulk of WP policy. Reading the same lengthy surname over and over again throughout a comprehensive text like the present one makes a tedious exercise, I say. I still think shortening a lengthy surname makes good sense in terms of text readability. Also, making good use of space doesn't necessarily imply that the available space is limited, as you're inferring. Rather, my point is that any available writing space should generally be used effectively, and encyclopedic texts should always be written in a concise manner in order not to tire readers. This goes for all media types, whether on paper or digitized. In the attention economy – of which WP now forms a significant part – human attention is a scarce commodity. WP editors should take special heed of this fact.

True, no sources referenced in the article make use of the name 'Georgescu', but only the full surname 'Georgescu-Roegen', as you point out. However, referring to the policy of WP:COMMONNAME in this context is irrelevant, as this 'common name' policy has to do only with naming the right title of an article, and not with the repeated referring to the subject of an article throughout the text. Instead, a more relevant policy here would be the MOS:SURNAME policy, according to which "Any subject who has had their surnames changed should be referred to by their most commonly used name." In effect, you're still right on the issue. Yes, I'll have to accept this particular policy myself <sigh>. To explain once again, I didn't look actively for this piece of WP policy before now, because my primary concern is with text readability as I perceive it. I'm bold and individualistic, but not reckless, when editing. I even sigh once in a while...

Two details need to be addressed:

• You haven't changed ALL the instances of the subject references to 'Georgescu-Roegen' in the text. In particular, only his first name 'Nicolae' is still used in the account of his boyhood. I think it is wise to keep it this way: It would be rather anachronistic to refer to him as 'Georgescu-Roegen' before he decided to actually change his surname while attending the lyceum. So, the specifics of the article subject matter should overrule the more general WP policy here.
• Apart from the account of his boyhood, there are still four instances in the text where you haven't changed 'Georgescu' to 'Georgescu-Roegen' properly. I take it that you have simply overlooked these instances by accident. Consequently, I have made the proper corrections myself, please inspect this diff to see if you agree on this.

By the way, thank you for mentioning that most of the article text here on the English WP has now been translated into Spanish. I wasn't aware of this development before reading about it in your post. It's a puzzling experience to read one's own prose when translated by others into a foreign language one doesn't fully understand oneself. Fortunately, some of the sentences appear to be almost multilingual in essence, such as this one: Georgescu-Roegen tiene una visión sombría del futuro de la humanidad. Yes, he certainly did have a sombre vision for the future of humanity. Verdad.

That's all for now. Gaeanautes (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

@Gaeanautes: Thank you for the reply. I agree with your general sentiment: we shouldn't slavishly follow rules for the sake of following them, but instead should strive to serve readers. In this case we're in disagreement over which is better for readers :).

I personally find consistency to be important intrawiki: breaking with standards can surprise readers and should only be done for good reasons (one of Wikipedia's strengths is that it is a compilation of articles inside of an overarching encyclopedia project; we can expect most classes of articles to be similar to others of its type). Names are an especially important aspect of a biography, and even with an explanatory note it can be jarring. For the surname issue, I don't see it as detrimental to have the full name, as most readers can easily skim past it. The subject's name is such an integral part of an article that readers can easily adjust to long names or those they can't even pronounce. But of course, that's just my personal opinion. If you want, you can see what WikiProject Biography thinks for this case, as the matter can always be revisited, and if other editors feel that it was more readable before, we can revert the change.

Regarding the two details: Yes, I agree that prior to the name change, only Georgescu should be used. Thank you for catching the ones I missed! It really is quite something to see others utilize something one has created, though for Romance languages like Spanish, you have to watch out for false cognates, haha. Thank you for your work on the article. Opencooper (talk) 15:16, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

"Controversies" section

In the "Mistakes and controversies" section, we can read that Georgescu-Roegen's mistake would have been to think that "the entropy law applies equally well to both energy resources and to material resources", while "the measure does not apply to macroscopic matter". But this last assertion seems completely wrong to me. I am not a physicist, but I obtained a master of physics when I was younger, and I am quite sure that the measure of entropy does apply to macroscopic matter. I tried to check the sources, but they are not available to me.

I think Georgescu-Roegen's mistake is rather not to have properly taken into account the fact that this law only applies to closed systems.2804:18:84A:8C24:D1C9:1407:FC1E:4C76 (talk) 12:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes this is a problematic section, and the issue of material vs energetic entropy is messy. So I have removed the proposed 'consensus' about it, and left it as a discussion issue. jmanooch 13:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Unregistered user (2804:... etc.): I understand your concern. However, we cannot rely on the beliefs and memories of individual editors when developing WP articles. We have to use reliable sources, per WP:SOURCE.

Speaking of reliable sources, in Georgescu-Roegen's (or 'NGR', for short) last published article on the subject before his death, he asserted:

“ [T]hermodynamic phenomena include matter as well. In the received literature matter is mentioned only indirectly in connection with that elusive concept, friction. But since friction was recognized to cause additional dissipation of available energy, I was greatly surprised to see a discipline whose primary object is the study of engines paying no attention to what happens to the matter in bulk that participates in a thermodynamic process. ”

This quote explains the need he felt to formulate the controversial Fourth Law. (The source is still available online by the time of writing, so you have a good opportunity to read it.)

In the secondary literature assessing NGR's work, no assertion is made anywhere (yet) that the entropy law may be applicable to macroscopic matter (or 'matter in bulk', as NGR terms it).

My conclusion here is that the field of thermodynamics has not and still does not deal with the degradation of macroscopic matter, and consequently, that the entropy law cannot properly be stretched to describe friction, matter dissipation, the wear and tear of material objects, garbage treatment, etc. There's a conceptual lacuna in the field and NGR tried to fill it out, but without any success (so far).

According to my best judgment, the problem is that the degradation of macroscopic matter cannot be uniformly measured, like energy can (in many cases).

However, if you know of any reliable sources in the field of thermodynamics — textbook, scholarly article, or whatever — arguing the case that the entropy law can indeed be stretched to describe the irreversible degradation of macroscopic matter, you're more than welcome to present these sources here on this talk page, or to include them directly in the article text itself, as you see fit.

References

End of post. Regards, Gaeanautes (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

So I appreciate your thoughtful edits and considerate notes. I have reverted them for the time being for two reasons.

Firstly, your citations need to be applied directly to the text. You can't have a listed of detailed citations then many paragraphs of complex text and expect anyone to take this seriously. It directly contravenes the principle of WP:INTEGRITY and comes across as, thought it may not be, original research.

Second, you need to take seriously the tone. You are presenting consensus that you yourself are saying does not exist here in this talk page. "My conclusion here is that the field of thermodynamics has not and still does not deal" and "According to my best judgment" are not phrases that attach to a consensus.

So if you move away from this supposed 'consensus' language, and you distribute the references precisely to specific phrases or half-sentences, I'll not edit it back because this is good content. It just needs to be much more precise.

For what it's worth, the issue of thermal entropy vs dissiptation entropy would be a useful clarification to make here; ie that thermal entropy can be used to be restore dissipative entropy, according to Clausius. But then that would raise problems of the information status of entropy, and become self-referential. It's where the debate is at though.

jmanooch 20:39, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

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Regarding this passage: "In thermodynamics proper, the entropy law does apply to energy, but not to matter of macroscopic scale (that is, not to material resources)." I've read the source "The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It" pages 34-43 (couldn't find the other source) and there is not a single mention of whether Thermodynamics can, or cannot, be applied in macroscopic scale. On the contrary, the author states (p.106):

"The main point Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen made was that economists did not pay sufficient attention to the side effects of economic processes. Often, the situation was pictured such that there were no issues in obtaining world resources and that “better” technology eventually would solve all environmental problems. However, our analysis of the glass making process powerfully shows how wrong this worldview is! Yes, from a purely materials and theoretical point of view we can continue with glass recycling indefinitely (at least in theory, more about this later), but we know now that from an entropy perspective, the process constantly increases the entropy of our world. Of course, the world’s entropy will increase as part of nature; but the point is that unchecked human industry will accelerate it at a much greater rate."

This is actually a common controversy in the field of ecological economics. Here are some excerts from the book "From Bioeconomics to Degrowth" (ed. Mauro Bonaiuti):

"[Khalil (1989)] did not question the validity of the Law of Entropy from the point of view of physics but rather its application to the economic system, presenting a stand then quite widespread among economists. According to Khalil, it was necessary to distinguish the Law of Entropy proper (propagation without labor) from its applications, such as Carnot’s cycle (propagation aiming at the production of labor). While the former is a pure physical phenomenon, the latter is the outcome of a “purposeful agency.” The distinction is pertinent because the presence of a “purposeful agency” is able to counteract, in Khalil’s opinion, entropic degradation."

"[Lozada (1991)] stated that the distinction made by Khalil between Kelvin’s and Clausius’ formulations, aiming to point out the intentional aspect, was groundless. For Lozada there is only one law of entropy, although this can be formulated in different ways. Both formulations have the characteristics of a purposeful process. The decisive criticism he makes, however, is of something else. According to Lozada, Khalil seems not to be aware of one essential fact, that is that Carnot’s cycle is wholly subject to the law of entropy even if it is, like an economic process, a purposeful process. The sense of the criticism is clear: it makes no difference whether the processes are intentional or not: they are still subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics."

As Mario Bonaiuti concludes: "G-R’s conclusions on the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the economic process seem, therefore, to be confirmed by this initial debate, a standpoint that will no longer be seriously questioned in later literature. However, the controversy does underline what was to become the true nub of the question: it is not a matter of discussing the applicability of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to the economic process but rather of evaluating its effective relevance as a theoretical and empirical tool capable of describing the limits that characterize the relationships between economics and ecology." So, according to some scholars, this discussion is already closed. G-Rs approach to entropy and material resource is that matter cannot be recycled forever, and there's plenty of evidence that this is true. In a way, entropy does affect macroscale matter by changing its microscale properties. e.g. plastic (glass, or anything) loses quality after a number of recyclings.

I believe this section must be rewritten, it needs corrections and more clarity.

I'll change the section title to "Controversies", since "Mistakes" is not neutral and actually is a wrong take on G-R's ideas. I'll also erase this specific reference (The Second Law of Life: Energy, Technology, and the Future of Earth As We Know It) since it doesn't support the claim.

Pedro H.V. Santos (talk) 20:47, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Bibliography

Where the hell is his bibliography, its absence completely atypical for a biography. Simulcron (talk) 22:10, 9 November 2022 (UTC)