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How Did We Get Here? The Tangled History of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Stephen Wolfram

And indeed particularly in chemistry and engineering it’s often been in the background, justifying all the computations routinely done using entropy. By 1807 the term “energy” had been introduced, but the question remained of whether it could in any sense globally be thought of as conserved. But in plenty of situations it wasn’t.

Energy 88
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Remembering the Improbable Life of Ed Fredkin (1934–2023) and His World of Ideas and Stories

Stephen Wolfram

But at a personal and social level it was still always a lot of fun being around Ed and being exposed to his unique intense opportunistic energy—with its repeating themes but ever-changing directions. It didn’t help that his knowledge of physics was at best spotty (and, for example, I don’t think he ever really learned calculus).