There are a lot of disagreeable jobs out there. Dealing with Anthony Colpo is one of them. Trying to make sense of thermodynamics is another. Whereas dealing with AC is kind of like the job pictured at the left – distasteful but fairly simple – delving into the workings of the laws of thermodynamics is intellectually challenging but far from easy. Problem is, it appears kind of easy, and everyone, it seems, fancies himself to be an expert. (How many people have we heard blather on about how a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, thinking they are accurately stating the 1st law of thermodynamics?) But the truth is that the more you study thermodynamics and the more you seem to learn, the less you really understand. I’ve had a family medical emergency that’s been occupying my time for the past week so I haven’t really had the consolidated time I’ve needed to finish off Part II of the AC book critique, but I haven’t forgotten about it. I should have it up in a day or two. Until then, I’ll give you a little thermodynamics to chew on so you, too, can see that it is far from simple. A commenter wrote the following in response to Part I of the AC critique: Dear Dr. Eades, I read the Feinman-Fine second-law article you cited above with interest, but found a mistake in the Figure 2 plot and the corresponding text. I didn’t notice any erratum either. The figures in section “Efficiency and thermogenesis” should add up to 1825.5 kcal effective yield and not to the 1848 kcal given. They seem to have interchanged the thermogenesis percentages of CHO (7%) and lipids (2.5%) in their calculation. The error source was perhaps the order in which they list the numbers: first percentages for F, C, and P from Jequier’s review, and then the diet C:F:P = 55:30:15. Go figure.

Original Source of Thermodynamics and the metabolic advantage