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Accepted manuscript

On Relativistic Thermodynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2025

David Wallace*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Philosophy of Science / Department of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh; [email protected]
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Abstract

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‘Relativistic thermodynamics’ should be understood not as a generalization of a non-relativistic theory but as an application of a general thermodynamic framework, neutral as to spacetime setting and allowing arbitrary conserved quantities, to the specific case of relativity. That framework gives an unambiguous result as to the thermodynamics of relativistically moving systems (an answer coinciding with Einstein’s, and Planck’s, original results.) Thermodynamic temperature is unambiguously defined as rate of change of energy with entropy at constant momentum; that said, its operational significance is limited and other measures of energy/entropy covariance, which incorporate momentum transfer, are often more useful.

Type
Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Philosophy of Science Association