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Does entropy increase with time or does it make time? (http://io9.com/5667872/does-
entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time)
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31,838 2 Dr. Dave Goldberg (http://dave_goldberg.kinja.com)
Filed to: ASK A PHYSICIST (/TAG/ASK-A-PHYSICIST) 10/21/10 9:00am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time)
(http://dave_goldberg.kinja.com)
In this week's Ask a Physicist, we're going to go old school and do some thermodynamics. I'll explore why disorder is such a big deal and
whether it might explain the mysteries of how time works.
Photo by Jef Safi (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jef_safi/).
In our bi-weekly "Ask a Physicist" chats, I know we normally do cosmology (http://io9.com/5526583/if-the-universe-is-expanding-whats-it-
expanding-into), relativity (http://io9.com/5596491/ask-a-physicist-how-long-does-it-take-for-you-to-fall-into-a-black-hole), quantum
mechanics (http://io9.com/5526583/if-the-universe-is-expanding-whats-it-expanding-into), particle physics (http://io9.com/5630725/ask-a-
physicist-can-i-build-a-doomsday-device-using-neutrinos) and whatnot, but I thought it'd be a nice change of pace to hit the 19th century for
some good old-fashioned thermodynamics. Don't give me that face! Thermodynamics made the industrial revolution possible, and will
ultimately be responsible for the death of the universe. I think it's earned your respect.
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If The Universe Is Expanding, What's It Expanding Into? (http://io9.com/5526583/if-the-universe-is-expanding-whats-it-expanding-into)If The
Universe Is Expanding, What's It Expanding Into? (http://io9.com/5526583/if-the-universe-is-expanding-whats-it-expanding-into)If The Universe
Is Expanding, What's It Expand (http://io9.com/5526583/if-the-universe-is-expanding-whats-it-expanding-into)
Last week the readers of io9 asked their most nagging questions about physics to a real-live
(/)
Our question this week comes from Andrew Cameron, who had the good sense to email me at askaphysicist@io9.com
(mailto:askaphysicist@io9.com). He asks:
Alright, I get that entropy is a measure of disorder in objects, but really, why is it that important that it should be a law?
If you look at almost all of the laws of physics, the flow of time seems to be an afterthought. Make a movie of two electrons colliding into one
another and then run that movie in reverse, and the time-reversal version will look as normal and physically valid as the forward version. At
the microscopic level, time seems to be completely symmetric (http://io9.com/5655307/why-are-past-present-and-future-our-only-options).
(Attention nitpickers: The exception is the weak force, but that doesn't matter for this discussion.)
On the macroscopic level, it's a whole different deal. You don't remember the future, for example, and you can't unscramble an egg or unmix a
cocktail. And while I'll be happy (should someone have the foresight to send me a question (mailto:askaphysicist@io9.com)) to talk about the
possibility of time travel, in general, there is a single arrow of time.
There is one common denominator distinguishing the future from the past: everything seems to get messier. You may know this as "The
Second Law of Thermodynamics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_law_of_thermodynamics)." Or you may not. I won't judge.
The Second Law says, colloquially, that things fall apart, or that things get more and more disordered with time, but this isn't quite right. What
it really says is that the total entropy of a closed system increases with time. Entropy is a measure of the number of ways that you could switch
things around and still have all of the macroscopic quantities remain the same.
Read more (http://io9.com/5526583/if-the-universe-is-expanding-whats-it-expanding-into)
(http://io9.com/5655307/why-are-past-present-and-future-our-only-options)
Why are past, present, and future our only options? (http://io9.com/5655307/why-are-past-present-and-future-our-only-options)Why are past,
present, and future our only options? (http://io9.com/5655307/why-are-past-present-and-future-our-only-options)Why are past, present, and
future our only options (http://io9.com/5655307/why-are-past-present-and-future-our-only-options)
In this week's "Ask a Physicist," we're going to figure out why the universe we
Read more (http://io9.com/5655307/why-are-past-present-and-future-our-only-options)
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A very nerdly example
Let me give you an example, since it will help to make things concrete. Suppose you had three air molecules and you put them into the left side
of a box. This is a very tidy, very low-entropy way to arrange things. Allow nature to do its business, and the molecules will fly around, each
spending about half its time on the left and half the time on the right.
At any moment, you'll see a randomized snapshot of the three molecules. There are 8 different ways to arrange the molecules, but only 2 of
them (LLL, RRR) have all three of the molecules on one side of the container. That's only a 25% probability. The rest of the time, the atoms are
(more or less) distributed uniformly. And a uniform distribution is a higher state of entropy than a concentrated one.
You could play this same game by taking a hand full of coins and tossing them into the air. For every head, it's like a molecule is in the left-
hand side of the room, and vice-versa. Do this a bunch of times, and you'll see that the molecules are almost always nearly equally distributed.
Big numbers turn probabilities into a law
As you increase the number of air molecules to, say, 10
26
or more (the number that would fit in a washing machine box), probability dictates
that random motions will ultimately make the molecules spread out "evenly." To put numbers on it, the typical deviation from even is about 1
divided by the square root of the number of particles, so in this case, we're saying that the two halves of the box will typically be equally filled to
about one part in 10
1 3
(1 in 10 trillion).
Because of quantum mechanics, there really is a fundamentally random (http://usersguidetotheuniverse.com/?page_id=1120) component to
all of this. For what it's worth, while it's technically possible that all of the air molecules randomly fly out of your bedroom (or wherever you're
reading this from) in the next few minutes, it's not something you should stay awake at night worrying about.
Increase in entropy is really only a law because there are so many particles in the universe that it becomes staggeringly unlikely that things will
spontaneously arrange themselves into a state of low entropy. We talk about this type of randomness with regards to gambling and weather
prediction in chapter 3 of the "User's Guide to the Universe." (http://alturl.com/82bmw)
As an even geekier example: you wouldn't be surprised to flip 2 heads in a row, but you'd be very suspicious if someone flipped 100 heads in a
row. To put things in perspective, if you did 10 flips every second, it would take roughly a trillion times the current age of the universe before
you'd expect to get a run that long. To put this another way, at some point, systems become so large that it becomes not merely "unlikely," but
"nearly brain-bendingly impossible" that entropy will decrease. That's why we call it "The Second Law." But in fact, it's really just a very, very
good suggestion.
Those creationists among you may use this as evidence that complicated things (like peoples or dinosaurs) couldn't ever form in the first place.
After all, you are a very highly ordered person, I'm assuming. If you are somehow a disordered homogeneous cloud of gas, then please accept
my apologies. But supposing you are a human, it's not that strange that you exist as a little patch of high order.
The real rule is that entropy will increase over the whole universe. So, for example, if you make a nice refrigerator full of cold air, you'll do so at
the expense of making a lot of high-entropy hot air. This is why your air-conditioner needs an exhaust, but your space heater doesn't. It's also
the reason you can't build a perpetual motion machine. Some of the energy will always be converted into heat, so quit asking, already.
Entropy continuously increases with time. You sit in a hot bath in a cool room, and at first, you feel all warm and cozy, but then things take an
unfortunate turn: The water in the room starts to equilibrate with the air and you get cold and shriveled.
The same holds for the future of the universe. As time goes on, heat gets more and more evenly distributed in the universe. Stars burn out,
black holes ultimately evaporate, and everything goes dark and cold. Boo!
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Time and the Second Law
One of the big debates going on in physics is whether the Second Law of Thermodynamics works the other way around. In other words, is the
flow time determined by the increase in entropy in the universe? Sean Carroll has written a very interesting book
(http://www.amazon.com/Eternity-Here-Quest-Ultimate-Theory/dp/0525951334/?ref=pd_sim_b_6&&tag=io9amzn-20&ascsubtag=
[referrer|www.google.co.in[type|link[postId|5667872[asin|0525951334[authorId|5726132905349161225) on this very subject.
Stephen Hawking famously related "psychological time," the way we remember things, to "entropic time." In other words, were the flow of
entropy to reverse itself then literally (as far as our brains are concerned) time would be flowing in the opposite direction.
One of the big reasons that these ideas have gained traction is because of an observational puzzle. The early universe seems to be in a state of
very high order, but there's no fundamental reason why that should have been the case. The universe set up right after the big bang could have
been full of disorder, but instead, it was about as orderly as you could possibly get. High entropy gravity systems tend to be clumpy (producing
stars, galaxies, and black holes), but the universe was about as smooth as you can get. Why?
Others have gone even further. Erik Verlinde, for example, claims that phenomena like gravity (http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785) come out of
the second law of thermodynamics (and string theory).
I should point out that these are interesting ideas, but not the consensus view of physics. Most would say that time makes entropy increase, not
that entropy creates time. That's the view I take. For my part, I think entropy is just something that happens. Or, at very least, something that
is very, very likely to happen.
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Dave Goldberg (http://www.twitter.com/askaphysicist) is the author, with Jeff Blomquist, of "A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the
Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty." (http://www.amazon.com/Users-Guide-Universe-Surviving-
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or our blog (http://www.usersguidetotheuniverse.com).) He is an Associate Professor of Physics at Drexel University. Feel free to send email
to askaphysicist@io9.com (mailto:askaphysicist@io9.com) with any questions about the universe.
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10/21/10 9:28am RenRen started this thread
Reply
RenRen (http://rfnajera.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 9:28am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31118828#comments)
(http://rfnajera.kinja.com)
"But supposing you are a human, it's not that strange that you exist as a little patch of high order."
Getting away from the theological argument before the other IO9'ers tear me a new one, as they often do...
Is the universe old enough to have more "patches of higher order" around? I mean, is 15 billion years enough to make more than one advanced
civilization (ours)?
Dr. Dave Goldbergs Discussions (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time)
All replies (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time/all)
Chip Overclock (http://coverclock.kinja.com) RenRen
10/21/10 9:33am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31119199#comments)
(http://coverclock.kinja.com)
@RenRen: This question is at the heart of the Fermi Paradox, which IMNSHO should be the principal philosophical and theological question of
our age.
372 Like
10/21/10 9:04am Mister_Roboto started this thread
Reply
Mister_Roboto (http://mister_roboto.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 9:04am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31116845#comments)
(http://mister_roboto.kinja.com)
There's no back ground layer in that sky, and who doesn't love lens flare?
Reply
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1 Reply
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Show more replies in this thread (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31118828#comments)
I mean, srsly, 15 billion years, and we haven't heard hide nor hair of _anyone_ else? Rly? WTF?
revdrkevind (http://revdrkevind-old.kinja.com) RenRen
10/21/10 9:39am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31119678#comments)
(http://revdrkevind-old.kinja.com)
@RenRen: Given that our neighborhood doesn't seem to be very special compared to other neighborhoods around us, and we took a galactic
eyeblink to come out, and assuming a similar process is going on everywhere...
It is mind-bendingly unthinkable that intelligent life isn't everywhere*.
*Everywhere in the sense that, technically, you are (and everything else is) made up of empty space and the atoms that compose you are
virtually anomalies compared to the space between them.
gerrylum (http://gerrylum.kinja.com) Chip Overclock
10/21/10 9:43am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31119988#comments)
(http://gerrylum.kinja.com)
@Chip Overclock: I don't think it's that odd. You must take into consideration the lifespan of a civilization, which would be drastically reduced
if faster-than-light travel is difficult enough that most civilizations die out before it is ever achieved.
Even if human civilization doesn't die out for another 200,000 years, it still means that we were only here for a small blip of time in the
cosmological timescale.
If that is true with other civilizations, the probability that two civilizations would exist at the same time and at close enough distances to be able
to contact each other would be extremely low.
jetRink (http://jetrink.kinja.com) RenRen
10/21/10 9:52am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31120655#comments)
(http://jetrink.kinja.com)
@RenRen: It's less a question of the age of the universe, and more a question of how likely our civilization is. That's what the Drake equation
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) tries to estimate.
We're not the product of some exceedingly random fluctuation, we didn't just pop into existence, we're here because something about the
universe makes our existence relatively likely. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that something needs to involve a god or not.
Reply
Rahll (http://rahll.kinja.com) Mister_Roboto
10/21/10 10:17am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31122617#comments)
(http://rahll.kinja.com)
@Mister_Roboto: Lmao, good call.
Mister_Roboto (http://mister_roboto.kinja.com) Rahll
10/21/10 10:28am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31123451#comments)
(http://mister_roboto.kinja.com)
10/21/10 10:03am Corpore Metal started this thread
Reply
Corpore Metal (http://corpore-metal.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 10:03am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31121467#comments)
(http://corpore-metal.kinja.com)
Excuse me, Dave, but this confuses me:
"At the microscopic level, time seems to run in one direction, and not the other. (Attention nitpickers: The exception is the weak force, but that
doesn't matter for this discussion.)"
Given your prior example of time not appearing to matter at the quantum level shouldn't this sentence read:
"But at the microscopic level, we see that time seems to run in one direction, and not the other."
I mean, I understand what you're trying to get at here. Aside from Thermodynamics and some aspects of chaotic dynamics, most the equations
of physics don't really care which direction time runs in. I just think the paragraph should have been a little clearer on that point.
10/21/10 10:00am mattycakes started this thread
Reply
mattycakes (http://mattycakes-old.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 10:00am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31121220#comments)
(http://mattycakes-old.kinja.com)
(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/8/2010/10/caf723c1126e9c8dbfcb980a7076f785/original.jpg)
Wait, flipping heads 100 times in a row is odd?
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Reply
@Rahll: That pocket of the universe is missing the background! Someone unlocked it!
Reply
Reply
OrtenseCaiti (http://ortensecaiti-old.kinja.com) mattycakes
10/21/10 10:31am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31123661#comments)
(http://ortensecaiti-old.kinja.com)
@mattycakes: Only if such laws are assumed to still be in effect.
_Mr_X_ (http://mister-x-.kinja.com) mattycakes
10/21/10 11:41am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31128848#comments)
(http://mister-x-.kinja.com)
@mattycakes: +1 for Rosencrantz & Guildenstern reference.
robert.heffern (http://robert-heffern-old.kinja.com) mattycakes
10/21/10 12:59pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31134427#comments)
(http://robert-heffern-old.kinja.com)
10/21/10 4:56pm txtphile started this thread
Reply
txtphile (http://txtphile.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 4:56pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31150564#comments)
(http://txtphile.kinja.com)
Wonderful article, thanks. And that non-consensus view of entropy/time would make a great sci-fi story.
10/21/10 9:19am SupaChupacabra started this thread
Reply
SupaChupacabra (http://supachupacabra.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 9:19am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31118035#comments)
(http://supachupacabra.kinja.com)
So this boils down to: Time is a Michael Bay movie that cannot be unwatched.
10/21/10 10:55am stereobot started this thread
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stereobot (http://stereobot-old.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 10:55am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31125624#comments)
(http://stereobot-old.kinja.com)
I would think that time leads to entropy.
Without space, there is no time.
Without space-time, there is no where for matter to move about and become disordered.
First there must be space for entropy to be possible, time is measured by entropy taking place but the entropy isn't "making time".
More space-time allows more possibilities of matter becoming more dis-organized.
Therefore, entropy does increase with time, which increases with space.
Now - what caused the "space" to come into existence?
When the Big Bang happened and the matter was evenly distributed through space, how was that any different from the previous state it was
in? If the matter "before" the Big Bang expanded into a larger volume but was evenly distributed, how could you say there was any entropy
before that initial expansion?
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@mattycakes: I was too late to post this, you beat me too it.
1Grand_Marquis (http://1grand_marquis-old.kinja.com) _Mr_X_
10/21/10 1:46pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31138083#comments)
(http://1grand_marquis-old.kinja.com)
@cc: +1 for noticing a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern reference.
aberudo (http://aberudo-old.kinja.com) stereobot
10/21/10 12:42pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31133264#comments)
(http://aberudo-old.kinja.com)
@stereobot: Aren't space and time inexorably linked into Space-time? Isn't that kind of what Einstein was going on about? Space doesn't exist
without time, and vice versa.
As a corollary, if that's true, if space-time creates the need for/causes entropy, or entropy causes space-time ...
10/21/10 12:17pm CVDon started this thread
CVDon (http://cvdon-old.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 12:17pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31131461#comments)
(http://cvdon-old.kinja.com)
This is a pretty great article in many ways.
I have a few questions (and most likely the answers are that the analogies I am using are from the wrong domain of physics).
1. What about magnetic particles floating around in space. Will they not combine and collect? Is this against the way entropy is defined by
physicists?
2. Generalize that to any object with mass. Won't mass tend to collect and co-locate as time goes on. Is this against the way entropy is defined
by physicists as well?
3. As things cool down as t goes to infinity, where does the heat go? Does it turn into more matter?
4. It should take energy to break clusters of matter apart. Where does this energy come from if the limit to which energy goes as t goes to
infinity is zero?
I kind of think that the concept of disorder in entropy is sort of arbitrarily defined, at least in non-mathematical understandings of it.
Somebody please set me straight.
-D
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That would mean that if the Big Bang was an explosion out of a completely ordered state, that perhaps space-time didn't exist until the instant
the universe entered a disorderly state of being.
wdef2001 (http://wdef2001-old.kinja.com) stereobot
10/21/10 12:49pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31133689#comments)
(http://wdef2001-old.kinja.com)
@stereobot: There is no "before" the Big Bang so that is not a meaningful statement.
stereobot (http://stereobot-old.kinja.com) aberudo
10/21/10 1:31pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31136993#comments)
(http://stereobot-old.kinja.com)
@aberudo: Yes, Space and Time = "space-time", they are one.
As far as I understand, entropy cannot exist if there is no space or time, so spacetime had to exist before entropy could happen.
If the Big Bang was an explosion out of a completely ordered state, why did it happen? How could a change have happened if there was no
space time and/or entropy?
Maybe Dr. Goldberg can step in at this point, but with my understanding of the Big Bang it was really more of an expansion rather than an
explosion.
1Grand_Marquis (http://1grand_marquis-old.kinja.com) stereobot
10/21/10 1:42pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31137791#comments)
(http://1grand_marquis-old.kinja.com)
@stereobot: re: what wdef said. the Big Bang was an explosion of spacetime itself, not the stuff inside spacetime that makes up the observable
universe.
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bug (http://jonas_danielsson.kinja.com) CVDon
10/21/10 1:04pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31134796#comments)
(http://jonas_danielsson.kinja.com)
@CVDon:
1 and 2: The thing is, unless they collide, their total energy will remain the same, and if that total energy allows them to be far apart, then there
are many many more ways for them to be far apart, and so they will not collect.
3. When they say things cool down, they actually mean the temperature gets even over all particles in the universe, but it doesn't go to zero.
4. No energy is gone, it is just more evenly distributed. That energy that kept clusters of matter together is released into kinetic energy which is
dissipated over the huge, cold, surroundings.
I don't like the image of disorder that much myself, but just thinks about it as number of ways the system can be realized. However, that is
already too abstract for pop science, not to mention 'number of accessible microstates' or 'hypervolume of the accessible phase space' which are
even more exact and descriptive definitions.
CVDon (http://cvdon-old.kinja.com) bug
10/21/10 1:28pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31136780#comments)
(http://cvdon-old.kinja.com)
@bug: Interesting thoughts.
I guess what I am wondering is what would induce the state of a system to leave a local minimum state of entropy in favor of a better local
minimum, or an absolute minimum.
Also, by what process according to these definitions could a minimum be selected in the event of multiple possible states of equal minimum-
ness.
Either I'm missing some nuance of this theory or applying it out of context, or otherwise something smells fishy.
-D
bug (http://jonas_danielsson.kinja.com) CVDon
10/21/10 3:21pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31144752#comments)
(http://jonas_danielsson.kinja.com)
@CVDon: Well, the prediction is only valid to if the assumption of all states with the same energy is equally probable, which in principle means
there has to be a way to get from one state to the all other. How that path looks is not really a problem of thermodynamics, more a problem of
the dynamics. In the classical picture, this means that there has to be a enough energy in the universe to overcome all those barriers.
Also, it doesn't really make sense to take about a 'state' of maximum entropy, since entropy is in itself a measure of how many states are
available. It is not like potential energy that changes depending on the relative position of the particles, it is a property of all possible positions of
the particles ...
CVDon (http://cvdon-old.kinja.com) bug
10/21/10 4:53pm (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31150372#comments)
(http://cvdon-old.kinja.com)
@bug: AHHHH yes, the number of available states. That is a distinction I had ignored.
Doesn't that mean that entropy is sort of a false or at least artificial measure then? For example, to count the available states wouldn't you have
to know them all to begin with? Would that mean you would have to have a complete parametrization or representation of the system?
When in the pop sci context someone says entropy with respect to something like "the universe" do they mean a specific agreed upon definition
which for lack of a better term means a homogeneous distribution of particles in space?
10/21/10 9:12am hwilam started this thread
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hwilam (http://hwilam.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/21/10 9:12am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31117505#comments)
(http://hwilam.kinja.com)
I'm confused: when I decrease the entropy in my system (i e clean up my apartment), I'm going backwards in time?
10/22/10 12:12am Pavement clawing maniac started this thread
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Pavement clawing maniac (http://taylocn.kinja.com) Dr. Dave Goldberg
10/22/10 12:12am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31170801#comments)
(http://taylocn.kinja.com)
It's been 10 years since my thermo class, but I don't remember any sort of statistical model being taught. I actually think that describing it
statistically is doing a disservice. It has more to do with the generation of waste heat. Basically, the entropy of the universe is always increasing
because of waste heat. This sounds like an odd term. Why not use that heat for something instead of just wasting it, you ask? Well, surely, if
you burn a stick of wood, you can use the heat released to increase the temperature of a body of water, and use that water to heat up
something else, and if it's a closed system, the heat will not be lost. However, the hot water is obviously a lower temperature than the
temperature of the burning wood, which means it can only transfer this heat into a system which has a temperature lower than that of the
water. Therefore, the heat is now less useful than it was before, and the entropy of the system has increased.
Also interesting, there is a certain explosive I've read about which does not explode due to a rapid oxidation of fuel, but using entropy as a
driving force instead. Weird.
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revdrkevind (http://revdrkevind-old.kinja.com) hwilam
10/21/10 9:41am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31119787#comments)
(http://revdrkevind-old.kinja.com)
@hwilam: Feat not- all that sweat you've put into your clothes, all that awful mouth-breath you've expelled mucking about for everyone else to
inhale.. you've done more than your share to increase entropy globally, even if locally things seem much better.
liesandslander (http://liesandslander.kinja.com) hwilam
10/21/10 9:41am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31119790#comments)
(http://liesandslander.kinja.com)
@hwilam: besides the stains on the carpet and destroyed door, yes.
gallahad (http://gallahad.kinja.com) hwilam
10/21/10 9:43am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31119967#comments)
(http://gallahad.kinja.com)
@hwilam: No, because you expend energy in cleaning up your apartment.
disrael (http://disrael-old.kinja.com) hwilam
10/21/10 11:31am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31128140#comments)
(http://disrael-old.kinja.com)
@hwilam: Shhhhh!!!
I'm trying to convince my wife that physics definitively proves that it is impossible to clean up the house, so why should I bother?
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mark.veyette (http://mark-veyette-old.kinja.com) Pavement clawing maniac
10/22/10 8:33am (http://io9.com/5667872/does-entropy-increase-with-time-or-does-it-make-time?comment=31185428#comments)
(http://mark-veyette-old.kinja.com)
@Pavement clawing maniac: The Second Law is entirely statistical. The only reason entropy tends to increase is because it is so immeasurably
probable to do so. Also, heat depends on much more than just temperature.