Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
important and enlightening, December 20, 2004
It is hard to think of anything more important or interesting than applying the truth of physics to everyday life. In this book, Rifkin efficiently dismantles the predominant/global capitalist economic paradigm with the simple, undeniable pillars of physics and thermodynamics. For the blind mice of the developed world - happily living in debt and consuming beyond their means and needs - physics is a forgotten high school annoyance. Rifkin's thesis quickly turns this annoyance into fear, and ultimately understanding, by reminding us that the modern developed world is indeed living on borrowed time and limited resources. Yes, the book becomes repetitive, but then again, Rifkin's point deserves repeating.
Read the first 4-5 chapters of this book and change your perspective on capitalism and your own footprint on this planet...
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23 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book is marred by a fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics, December 19, 2005
The thermodynamic basis of this work is unsupportable.
The problem, simply put, is this: while it sounds convincing to most lay-people (and even many physicists, chemists and engineers) to equate thermodynamic entropy with "disorder", this is based on a meaningless misinterpretation of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics simply states that energy tends to disperse, if it is not hindered from doing so. It says nothing about "orderliness", and nothing about availability of matter.
Entropy is an extensive property of thermodynamic systems. It is not a property of energy, and certainly not of matter. It is nonsensical to speak of "high- or low-entropy" energy. It is even more nonsensical to speak of "high- or low-entropy" matter. Better to speak of energy quality ("the sun provides us with high-quality energy, and low-quality energy is re-radiated back into space"). Entropy is used to measure the "concentration" (I use this term for illustration only) and hence the usefulness or availability to us of energy, within a given system of matter and energy. The second law of thermodynamics tells us nothing about the tendency of matter to become more or less useful or available to us. There is no thermodynamic basis for reading inevitable decay onto physical, biological or social systems.
Dr. Frank L. Lambert, Professor Emeritus (Chemistry) of Occidental College, Los Angeles, has carried out extensive work over the past few years to demythologise the popular (and, all too frequently, specialist) misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. For anyone contemplating reading "The entropy law and the economic process", I would strongly advise that you first look at Lambert's website: http://www.entropysite.com. He goes through this in detail in multiple format aimed at a range of audiences from lay-person to scientist and engineer.
This review is not intended to be disparaging, towards either the authors, or others who share the common misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. The problem is deeply entrenched and it will be a long time before the myths around entropy and the second law are dispelled.
A review similar to this has been posted for other popular books that misrepresent the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. So far:
-Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's "The entropy law and the economic process"
-Fritjof Capra's "The web of life"
Others may be added to this list in due course.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing book , September 7, 2006
As the authors say about entropy, it requires some intuitivity to understand this book. And I say as a person majored in physics this book is really amazing. I have never read such kind of a book before covering nearly all of life somehow. The very first times I had read the book I used to give lots of illustrations from it within my discussions with others in my department. Some thought I had gone too far with the book but the ones who read the book appreciated it as much as I did. The book requires an understanding of sciencetific thinking unfortunately.
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