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system could have internal resistance to change - what's the law called in thermodynamics... Then it's not a 50 - 50% chance.

Otherwise the question becomes: loaded with what?

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Wed Jul 11th, 2007 at 10:57:50 AM EST
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I think the law is called "conservation of angular momentum".

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jul 11th, 2007 at 11:11:03 AM EST
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yeah, that would tend to keep the dynamo pretty much upright all the time. It's dynamics law, no need for thermodynamics here. I don't think the whole problem involves any statistical mechanics here, just very complicated navier-stokes + heat generation and transfer + current loops. Probably as bad as plasma dynamics, and the PDE have solutions that are extremely sensitive to initial conditions, yet the stable dynamo is an attractor and all the chaos stuff that was trendy 15 years ago and everybody's jaded.

Pierre
by Pierre on Wed Jul 11th, 2007 at 11:16:21 AM EST
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