Puzzled

[swatcher]

The total disorder in the universe, as measured by the quantity that physicists call entropy, increases steadily over time. Also, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity and permanence of organized structures, also increases steadily over time.
— Freeman Dyson ( Synopsis of lecture. University of Maryland Distinguished Lecture Series (2 Mar 1998 )

Do we have a physicist on this forum? This sentence makes my head spin.

 

[DrLogic]

Well i did a bit of digging around and the closest thing i could find to an explanation was the following

The common argument used to explain this is that, locally, entropy can be lowered by external action, e.g. solar heating action, and that this applies to machines, such as a refrigerator, where the entropy in the cold chamber is being reduced, to growing crystals, and to living organisms. This local increase in order is, however, only possible at the expense of an entropy increase in the surroundings; here more disorder must be created. The conditioner of this statement suffices that living systems are open systems in which both heat, mass, and or work may transfer into or out of the system. Unlike temperature, the putative entropy of a living system would drastically change if the organism were thermodynamically isolated. If an organism was in this type of “isolated” situation, its entropy would increase markedly as the once-living components of the organism decayed to an unrecognizable mass.

Excerpt from : <CITE style="FONT-STYLE: normal" id=CITEREFUlanowicz2000 class=book>Ulanowicz, Robert, E. (2000). Growth and Development – Ecosystems Phenomenology</CITE>
<CITE style="FONT-STYLE: normal" class=book></CITE>
<CITE style="FONT-STYLE: normal" class=book>I guess what he is saying is that the scale of which we consider as order is not the same when compared to the size of the universe itself. Though, i suppose some could argue having a law of entropy is in itself an oxymoron.</CITE>

 

[skunkape]

<cite style="font-style: normal;" class="book">Though, i suppose some could argue having a law of entropy is in itself an oxymoron.</cite>

I got sent to stand in the hall for asking that question in 6th grade science. The teacher said something about "Law of entropy," and I simply asked "Who makes those Laws."
I was really kinda stumped by how badly that question pissed her off.
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[DrLogic]

I got sent to stand in the hall for asking that question in 6th grade science. The teacher said something about "Law of entropy," and I simply asked "Who makes those Laws."
I was really kinda stumped by how badly that question pissed her off.

I think this is the natural reaction when one questions that which is believed via dogma rather than understanding, its like dropping the 'who made god' bomb

 

[TClaeys]

I can't say that I understand it either. This is because certain portions in our universe seem to defy entropy, they don't get disorganized, they become MORE organized. So, if I can describe it correctly, the idea is that entropy, as a whole, is becoming more disorganized. And that is because this organization is at the expense of even greater chaos. Is that how it works??

Anyway this is a good read and fits right in.
Asimov-The Last Question

 

[swatcher]

Thanks for your replies.

 

[DrLogic]

I can't say that I understand it either. This is because certain portions in our universe seem to defy entropy, they don't get disorganized, they become MORE organized. So, if I can describe it correctly, the idea is that entropy, as a whole, is becoming more disorganized. And that is because this organization is at the expense of even greater chaos. Is that how it works??

Anyway this is a good read and fits right in.
Asimov-The Last Question

Depends how you define organized and in what time frame. If you look at the entropic success story of a supernova, you would argue in favor of entropy. But, if you are a being who lives for ~75 years and beholds the wonder of the solar system around you, that formed over a long period (by your perspective) in the aftermath of said supernova, then I think we would be forgiven for arguing the case against entropy.

However, if someone were able to role back the clock to the beginning (whatever that means) and were to watch the unfolding of the universe with the fast forward button pressed, one might liken it to the sound of popcorn in a microwave, watching that which we perceive as order dissipating in the blink of an eye, once again you could argue the case for entropy.

Another way to look at it is that what we perceive as order may merely be a conceptual limitation. When you look at the 2nd law of thermodynamics it states entropy as a measurement of order/disorder in the isolated system, and that it tends toward a maximum.

But theoretically you could turn it on its head, while still agreeing that the entropy tends toward a maximum, you could say instead that what we perceive as order is merely efficiency of entropy, or in other words the most effective and noticeable disordering process is enacted on a system that is very well ordered.

This lends toward a yin and yang which I think is quite elegant, after all if there were no process within which thing collect in a measurable order, entropy would be surplus to requirement and consequently would not exist.

 

[swatcher]

Entropy tends towards a maximum, where no exchanges of any kind of energy are possible. It's called the "heat death of the universe" as implied in the second law of thermodynamics. But wouldn't that also be the state of maximum equilibrium or uniformity? A.k.a. perfect order? Am I getting lost in semantics?

DrLogic, I like your reference to Yin/Yang

 

[DrLogic]

Well this 'heat death' got me thinking, so if you think of the universe as a flat plane with lots of craters or wells in it due to the large gravitational forces ala general relativity. Then we can think of the entropy maximum as the slow process of smoothing out this into an entirely flat plane without wells.

In such a situation one can presume that classical mechanics tends towards zero. I.e. the spread is such that gravity can no longer overcome it, no energy left to use so no motion or acceleration, no time dilation (reciprocal or gravitational), no frames of reference, unless you count the whole universe as one. But then it has nothing to be in reference to so it would be irrelevant anyway.

OK so no CM, but then I thought what about quantum mechanics? Its striking that in a universe where everything is spread out into its smallest constituent parts, with no observers around, is the mother of all non-collapsed wave functions. Or to put another way, as the entropy in a deterministic system reaches a maximum, does non-deterministic behaviour enters into an entropic minimum?

There are so many theories floating around about what happens at this point that its hard to pin down what quantum effects could take place (if any given the energy issue). So I've probably gone an opened a whole can of worms rather than help better the understanding

However, I think I may be able to instantly redeem myself with this little find: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9278630/The-Agony-Over-Entropy

Its a paper (30 pages or so), written in 2006 on entropy, the different kinds, the misinterpretations, some solutions etc. Really well written and fairly easy to follow. It even has the sentence 'Entropy is the yin side of the flow', great minds...

 

[DrLogic]

Found a site (http://www.chemeurope.com/lexikon/e/Heat_death_of_the_universe/) which is a time-line on heat death, the last section of which is pretty much the closest elucidation I could find on my posit above about quantum mechanics:

The Photon Age - 10¹⁵⁰ years and Beyond
The Universe Achieves Low-Energy State: 10^10³ years and beyond:


The Universe now reaches an extremely low-energy state. What happens after this is speculative. It's possible a Big Rip event may occur far off into the future, or the Universe may settle into this state forever, achieving true heat death. Extreme low-energy states imply that localized quantum events become major macroscopic phenomena rather than negligible microscopic events because the smallest perturbations make the biggest difference in this era, so there is no telling what may happen to space or time. It is perceived that the laws of "macro-physics" will break down, and the laws of "quantum-physics" will prevail.

So I think we were kind of on the right track but the bit saying 'so there is no telling what may happen to space or time' leads me to believe there probably isn't any useful data out there to carry on digging.