VERSIONS OF THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

The "entropy always increases" version of the second law of
thermodynamics was a conclusion deduced by Clausius from two false
premises. Clausius eventually abandoned it but the enchanted
scientific world did not:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink, "Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics", pp.
39-40: "On many occasions Clausius was criticised by his
contemporaries. I do not know if, in his own time, he was criticised
in particular for his famous formulation of the second law as the
increase of the entropy of the universe. However, Kuhn (1978, pp.
13-15, p. 260) has pointed out the remarkable fact that in the book
(Clausius 1876) he eventually composed from his collected articles,
every reference to the entropy of the universe and even to the idea
that entropy never decreases in irreversible processes in
adiabatically isolated systems is deleted!"

Let us assume that Kelvin's version of the second law can be violated,
that is, in some cases, heat can be converted into work cyclically and
isothermally. Would there be respective violations of the "entropy
always increases" version? Only if Clausius' deduction of the latter
version is valid and based on true premises. If not, a scenario is
conceivable in which violations of the second law do occur in nature
but our entropic glasses prevent us from seeing them. In this scenario
the "entropy always increases" version automatically becomes the red
herring suggested by Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa and Uffink:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink, "Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics", p.
94: "This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful to see
irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second law. Is
it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued statements of
Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained attempts of
Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was
right in her verdict that the discussion about the arrow of time as
expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is actually a RED
HERRING."

Pentcho Valev