In social thermodynamics, socio-thermodynamics is the study of study social and racial divisions and separations in society, a phenomenon which can be understood from a phase-diagram perspective, using entropy of mixing, working and heating effects, and first and second law interpretations. [1] The subject was first outlined in the 2002 article “Socio-thermodynamics – Integration and Segregation in a Population” by German physicist Ingo Müller. [2] One funny point, about the modeling of human social life through the difficult science of thermodynamics, as Müller states in his 2007 book A History of Thermodynamics: the Doctrine of Energy and Entropy, is that:
“It is interesting to note that socio-thermodynamics is only accessible to chemical engineers and metallurgists. These are the only people who know phase diagrams and their usefulness. It cannot be expected, in our society, that sociologists will appreciate the potential of these ideas.”
Most chemical engineers and metallurgists concur, in that socio-thermodynamics is obvious to mathematically-trained scientists, such as physicists, but the explanation of this obviousness to others is not so easy.
References
1. Müller, Ingo. (2007). A History of Thermodynamics - the Doctrine of Energy and Entropy. New York: Springer.
2. (a) Müller, Ingo. (2002). Socio-thermodynamics – Integration and Segregation in a Population, P: Continuum Mechanics and Thermodynamics 14, 384-404, 2002.
(b) Müller, Ingo and Weiss, Wolf. (2005). Entropy and Energy - a Universal Competition ("Socio-thermodynamics - Integration and Segregation in a Population", ch. 20).Germany: Springer.
