In hmolscience, L. William Poirier (c.1970-), aka “Bill Poirier”, is an American theoretical chemical physicist noted for his 2014 A Conceptual Guide to Thermodynamics, wherein he devotes an appendix section to what he refers to has tongue-in-cheek humanities applications of thermodynamics.

Human thermodynamics

See main: Thermodynamics textbooks with humanities applications

Poirier ventures, at one point, into the realm of human thermodynamics, via citation to his co-faculty member Bruce Clarke and his 2001 Energy Forms, and thereupon discussing H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, and Matt Groening. [2]

Human molecules | Adams
On American historian Henry Adams, Poirier has the following to say:

“Not a scientist himself, Henry Adams’ fascination with thermodynamics nevertheless led to attempts to incorporate first and second law principles into other disciplines such as history. Alas, as Adams himself lamented, he was unable to achieve this goal with anything approximating thermodynamical rigor, owing to the fact that he was not really a ‘math guy’. In retrospect, Henry should probably not have been so hard on himself: history is inherently harder than thermodynamics; people are not molecules.”

There are a number of errors in this statement. Firstly, thermodynamics, by itself, is harder, than history, as standalone subjects. In terms of “intellectual difficulty”, on a scale of 1 (easiest) to 100 (hardest), of all college subjects, history ranks at 41.7 and thermal science ranks at 81.7, according to polls of college students (see: Beckhap’s law proof). This is not to say, however, that humanities, in general, is easier that the physical science, e.g. as Newton once said: "I an calculate the movements of the planets, but not the madness of men", but to point out that thermodynamics is notoriously the most difficult of all subjects.

In 2015, Poirier, in response to his commentary that history is harder than thermodynamics, elaborated the following, in communication to Libb Thims: [6]

“For the record, I agree with you (and with Boltzmann and Adams, both of whom I have read and admire) that application of thermodynamics ideas to human societies is a fascinating and worthwhile endeavor—but also an extremely difficult one (I evendabbled in this area myself, many years ago, with a model applying thermodynamic ideas to human corruption vs. cooperation.) So whenI say ‘history is inherently harder than thermodynamics’, this is what I am referring to of course—not, say, history as it is taught as an undergraduate college course.”


Left: Poirier, circa 2011, at the Boltzmann tombstone, Vienna, pointing to the S = k log W equation for entropy. Right: his 2014 A Conceptual Guide to Thermodynamics, showing a brain in a piston and cylinder, which hints at the Boltzmann brain problem, which he touches on (pgs. 102-03). [1]

In any event, correctly, the “thermodynamics of history”, which is what Adams was after, or “physico-chemical social dynamics” (see: physicochemical humanities) as he called it, however, is more-difficult than both of the former subjects; which is why Adams, a two cultures genius, is the second-ranked greatest social Newton of all time.

The second error, in Poirier’s purview, is his statement: “people are not molecules”, which not only contradicts Adams' position, but also Boltzmann’s position, stated below, whose tombstone, Poirier so happily poses next to (adjacent photo): [3]

“Molecules are like to many individuals, having the most various states of motion, and the properties of gases only remain unaltered because the number of these molecules which on average have a given state of motion is constant.”

In 2015, Poirier, in elaboration on his view of humans, as not being molecules, in communication with Libb Thims, stated the following: [6]

“As for ‘people are not molecules’, tongue-in-cheek aspects ofthis passage notwithstanding, surely you would agree that a human being displays a much more complex range of available states than a single molecule—even if both, for purposes ofmodeling, may be thought of as entities described by various states? If so, then you can read my statement in that light, and it should become not the least bit controversial for you.”

The two natures conceptual ideology that humans are not molecules also modern textbook science, e.g. Kalyan Annamalai’s 2011 Advanced Thermodynamics Engineering (quote: humans are 26-element energy/heat driven dynamic atomic structures) or Robert Sterner and James Elser’s 2002 Ecological Stoichiometry (quote: humans are 22-element abstract molecules).

Information theory

See main: Information entropy (quotes)

Poirier, of note, attempts to meld information theory into thermodynamics, and thereby seems to be unaware that this is a theoretically baseless endeavor (see: Shannon bandwagon); or as Dirk ter Haar (1954) put it “the entropy introduced in information theory is NOT a thermodynamical quantity.” [4] Poirier, in commentary on this, stated the following: [6]

“As for the information theory vs. entropy debate, I am well aware that there are some who do not like to interpret thermodynamic entropy in information terms, and others who see value in doing so.Moreover, there are unresolved foundational issues pertaining toprobabilitytheory itself, and if you like, to the formalism of statisticalensembles, that have botheredpeople from the 19th century right onthrough to our own time, and which willlikely continue to do so in theforeseeable future. Rather than engage in that debate, my goalhere is to provide introductory students with a usefulpicture forconceptualizing entropy, which I believe the informationapproachsurely does provide. But ultimately, of course, that is for the students to decide.”

(add discussion)

Education
Poirier completed his PhD in theoretical physics in 1997 at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 2001 became a professor of theoretical and computational chemistry Texas Tech University, where he has taught thermodynamics each fall semester, writing his A Conceptual Guide to Thermodynamics in 2011 while on sabbatical in France. [5]

References
1. Poirier, Bill. (2014). A Conceptual Guide to Thermodynamics (human, 3+ pgs). Wiley.
2. Clarke, Bruce. (2001). Energy Forms: Allegory and Science in the Era of Classical Thermodynamics. University of Michigan Press.
3. (a) Boltzmann, Ludwig. (1872). "Further Studies on the Thermal Equilibrium of Gas Molecules" (“Weitere Studien über das Wärmegleichgewicht unter Gasmolekülen.”) In Wisssenschaftliche Abhandlungen, ed. F. Hasenohrl, vol.1, pg. 317. J.A. Barth, Leipzig, 1909.
(b) Ball, Philip. (2004). Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another (pg. 69). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
(c) Thims, Libb. (2008). The Human Molecule (pg. 8-9). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
4. (a) Ter Haar, Dirk. (1954). Elements of Statistical Mechanics (pg. 232). Rinehart.
(b) Thims, Libb. (2012). “Thermodynamics ≠ Information Theory: Science’s Greatest Sokal Affair” (url), Journal of Human Thermodynamics, 8(1): 1-120, Dec 19.
5. Bill Poirier (about) – ConceptualThermo.com.
6. Poirier, Bill. (2015). “Email to Libb Thims”, Jan 25.

External links
● L. William Poirier (faculty) – Texas Tech University.