Uncanny sine waves John B. Hart Physics Department, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio 45207, (Received 18 February 1982; accepted for publication 11 March 1982) ‘When we watch TV coverage of a space shot, the camera sometimes focuses on a large map of Earth at Mission Con- trol in Houston. The orbital paths of the space capsule are represented by what look like sine waves on this map. The “sine waves” are displaced for each new orbit. The purpose of this note is to present a simple geometrical picture which helps us to understand the nature of these paths. Imaginean ordinary aluminum soft drink can which was cut into two pieces by a saw which made an angle, say 45 deg with the axis of the cylindrical can, The section formed by the plane of the saw as it cut the cylinder is an ellipse. Now imagine that one of the cylindrical sections is cut along a line perpendicular to its base, unrolled, and laid flat. The resulting curve isa sine wave! Hence we can imagine the elliptical orbit of a satellite to Entropy change and reversi M.G. Calkin and D. Kiang ity be confined to a cylindrical surface which, when cut, un- rolled and laid flat, produces a sine wave. If the map on the wall in Houston is made by projecting the surface of the Earth onto the cylinder which contains the orbit of the satellite, then the paths we see on the map are sine waves. Readers who want a beautifully simple mathematical proof that the sine (or cosine) wave is the development of an elliptical section ofa right circular cylinder are referred to the delightful book by Yates." "Robert C. Yates, Curves and Their Properties (The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Washington, DC, 1982), p. 229 Department of Physics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 315 (Received 24 February 1982; accepted for publication 17 March 1982) The concept of entropy change and the reversibility of a ‘process is an intriguing one to most undergraduate physics students. While such calculational techniques as replacing an irreversible process by a reversible path’ are beyond the scope of first-year physics, the concept itself seems to be of sufficient interest and importance to be included in some introductory texts.” At this level itis difficult for a student to “see” the transition from AS>0 to AS =0 when, for example, the number of heat baths used in raising the tem- perature ofa given amount of water from 7, to T, becomes infinite. We believe the following approach of starting with a finite number of baths could alleviate this difficulty, as well as providing some insights into certain specific points not often explicitly mentioned. Leta given amount of water with unit heat capacity for brevity} be in successive thermal contact with a series of (N +1) heat baths, with temperature Ty 0. 2) -T) y 6) © 1983 American Association of Physics Teachers 78‘and hence the number of baths must tend to infin- ity. We must now consider whether the infinite sum of in- finitesimal terms in Eq. (2) tends to zero, of to a finite num- ber, asin Eq, (3). To satisfy Eq. (3) with 7, , — T_—+Oand N—, afinite (N-independent) number of terms can go to zero atbitrarily, a finite fraction of the total number of terms must behave as 1/N, and the remaining terms go to zero faster than 1/N. The resulting change in entropy is, 1 AS0 to 45-0 explicitly. It should be noted that this ‘comes about not just because the individual entropy changes AS, are “small,” but because they are second or- der in the small quantity AT. "Mi, W. Zemansky and R. H. Dittman, Heat and Thermodynamics, 6th ed. (McGraw-Hil, New York, 1981) See, for example, D. Halliday and R. Resnick, Fundamentals of Phsis, 2nd ed. (Wiley, New York, 1981}; oJ, W. Kane and M. M, Sternheim, Physics (Wiley, New York, 1978. This condition of monotonically increasing temperature can be easly relaxed, Comment on “Geometrical treatment of force: A static example” Willem M. de Muynck Department of Theoretical Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology. Eindhoven, The Netherlands (Received 29 December 1981; accepted for publication 17 March 1982) Froma didactic point of view it certainly is important to choose as simple examples as possible in clarifying physical concepts. However, one should be on one’s guard not to oversimplify the issue, since in that case the clarification ‘may tend to transform into obscurity. It seems to me that Bender" has not completely avoided this pitfall. In reading his paper one keeps wondering how it is possible that the general relativistic geometrization of force, which isimpos- sible in a three-dimensional formalism, can be clarified by a three-dimensional example. The impossibility of the geometrization of force in three dimensions is easily seen to follow from the circumstance that the geodesic equations dx! { i| dx! dxt ae? Wik de dt havex (at )(a an arbitrary constant) asa solution whenever X(t) sone. So, the orbit ofa particle, if described by (1), is independent of the length of the initial three-velocity, Since, in the Newtonian theory, this only obtains for force- free rectilinear motion, we see that the Newtonian equa- tions of motion cannot be represented by the geodesic equa- tions (1) if there is a nonvanishing force. In this case, the initial condition [+ t)-% a)] determines a Newtonian or- bit which differs from the orbit with initial condition [x ttohax ttl]. Figure 1 illustrates another way of ap- proaching the impossibility of the geometrization of force using orbits in three dimensions: since these orbits can be tangent to each other they cannot provide a nonsingular coordinatization of three-space. The possibility of the geometrization of force in the four- dimensional space-time formalism derives from the cis- 12,3 (a) #' (ty) xt (tg) Fig. Tangential ori in three dimensions. 79 -Am.J. Phys S41}, Jan. 1983 ccumstance that the above-mentioned problems donot arise here. This is so because initial four-velocities which only differ in their lengths determine one and the same geodesic. ‘AS a consequence, there are no geodesics here, which are tangent to another geodesic in some point. This opens up the possibility of a nonsingular geodesic coordinatization. Asa matter of fact, since ax! dt ds 1 ds lara Aer) ‘we see that the three-velocity is not influenced by the arbi- trary constant a. That is, to each geodesic in space-time there corresponds precisely one initial three-velocity: dif- ferent lengths of initial three-velocities means different dir- ections ofthe initial four-velocities in space-time. ‘The three-dimensional example Bender works outis pre- cisely the case of a force-free Newtonian particle. This is the only system for which the orbit is independent of the length of the initial three-velocity, which property stems from the fact that the Newtonian equations for a free parti- cle have the geodesic form (1) in arbitrary coordinates. So, force-free motion can be geometrized in three dimensions, This, however, can hardly be interpreted as the geometriza- tion of force in the general relativistic sense. Of course, it ccan be seen as a covariant geometrical description of “ap- parent” inertial forces. However, in that case we first should have to give up our habit of looking upon inertial forces as effects of the choice of a nioninertial coordinate system which isa geometrical point of view), subsequently substantialize these “apparent” forces in order to give them the same status of “real” forces (that is, forces that can be attributed to the influence of a definite material source), and finally return to the geometrical position. 123, 'R.K, Bender, Am. J. Phys. 49, 10661981) © 1983 American Associaton of Physics Teachers 79