Entropy

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I've always thought the most ordered state possible is complete entropy. That would mean everything is spread out in a perfect matrix. How is that not ordered? Clumps of different shapes and sizes here and there, gaps of different sizes and shapes separating them... That's a mess.

Yes! Agreed!

--A

[Skyweir]

Isn't there something to do with degrees of freedom in entropy:

Yea. Degrees of freedom is much more accurate and useful than disorder.
I was just reading an article that was talking about the collapse of sandpiles [among other things]...thought it was at Quanta, but didn't see it...it was semi-relevant, and coincidental, but I've lost it now...

... ... well that was anticlimactic V .. I was reading with baited interest.... then .. nope lost it

Pete kudos mate .. you in an awesome league

[Fist and Faith]

There are several concepts being mixed about here. There is not just a question of order vs disorder, but also complexity. The concepts are defined mathematically, and I'm not a mathematician. But something that can be written as a simple formula, say a number consisting of a string of 2s repeating indefinitely, we could describe this very simply with a few symbols. It has order, but very low complexity. It's not random, but it's not complex.

All the really interesting things about life come from building up complexity, not merely triumphing over disorder.

Interesting thinking, to be sure. But still, entropy will break down the complex life just as surely as the string of 2s, right?

[Zarathustra]

There are several concepts being mixed about here. There is not just a question of order vs disorder, but also complexity. The concepts are defined mathematically, and I'm not a mathematician. But something that can be written as a simple formula, say a number consisting of a string of 2s repeating indefinitely, we could describe this very simply with a few symbols. It has order, but very low complexity. It's not random, but it's not complex.

All the really interesting things about life come from building up complexity, not merely triumphing over disorder.

Interesting thinking, to be sure. But still, entropy will break down the complex life just as surely as the string of 2s, right?

The string of 2s is analogous to full homogeneity, which you said would be the most ordered state. The heat death of the universe won't be like this, it will be random. However, everything will be "smeared out" so that there will not be any significant energy differences around the universe. It's these differences that create the potential for everything we deem good.

The point of maximum entropy is when you can't do anymore useful work. There will still be random energy, but you can't harness it for anything, because energy is only useful when there is an energy difference between two states, e.g. two poles on a battery where the electrons are flowing from one to the other, or a watermill where water is flowing from high potential energy (due to its height + gravity) to low potential energy. If we use the analogy of a watermill for the universe, maximum entropy is when all the water will have run downhill and there will no longer be any process that lifts it back up, which would take another energy difference. Differences imply structure. Homogeneity is the absence of difference, and hence the absence of structure. That's why we call it maximum disorder, even when it's homogenous.

I think Pete talked about the fact that there would still be potential energy, even if there are only atoms left, because each atom contains a lot of energy. But perhaps he's not aware that eventually all the atoms will break down, too.

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, random. I don't imagine diffusion ever arranges things neatly into rows. Still, "smeared out" on the scale of the universe is pretty much what I'm saying.

Hey, what happens when atoms break down? Isn't that what nuclear fission is? The release of energy because of the strong and weak nuclear forces? If so, then no even distribution would be likely, or at least it wouldn't last. An atom breaking down anywhere would affect its neighbors. That would happen everywhere, and things would be thrown around. They'd bump into each other. Areas of higher gravity would grow. And we're on our way to making stars again.

[Zarathustra]

Fission happens when a very large, unstable (i.e. radioactive) atom is hit with a high energy particle, breaking it apart. I'm talking about something different, i.e. proton decay, where the protons themselves break down into constituent parts.

However, after a quick reread of the issue, it seems this is only theoretical with no evidence of proton decay yet. If it does happen, it happens on a scale much MUCH longer than the age of the universe.

[Zarathustra]

A very cool article on the fate of the universe.

[Fist and Faith]

Heh. Yeah, good stuff.

[Vraith]

Fission happens when a very large,

It is VERY important to note that those fuckers don't even EXIST without BiG Fucking Stars PLUS other things...so Fist's "energy is released, on the way to stars again" just doesn't work.
they also don't exist without the big bang...
[[bunch of side-notes/tangents deleted....]]

My current judgement/idea:

Entropy may or may not tell you about the death of the universe...


but it there WEREN't Entropy, there wouldn't BE a universe...it is just as much, probably MORE, a CAUSE of the beginning as it is a description of dying to the end.

[peter]

Isn't there something to do with degrees of freedom in entropy:

Yea. Degrees of freedom is much more accurate and useful than disorder.
I was just reading an article that was talking about the collapse of sandpiles [among other things]...thought it was at Quanta, but didn't see it...it was semi-relevant, and coincidental, but I've lost it now...

... ... well that was anticlimactic V .. I was reading with baited interest.... then .. nope lost it

Pete kudos mate .. you in an awesome league

........... Don't stop Sky.

[Skyweir]

Fission happens when a very large,

It is VERY important to note that those fuckers don't even EXIST without BiG Fucking Stars PLUS other things...so Fist's "energy is released, on the way to stars again" just doesn't work.
they also don't exist without the big bang...
[[bunch of side-notes/tangents deleted....]]

My current judgement/idea:

Entropy may or may not tell you about the death of the universe...


but it there WEREN't Entropy, there wouldn't BE a universe...it is just as much, probably MORE, a CAUSE of the beginning as it is a description of dying to the end.

Ah Im glad youre back on this topic .. so where does all this fit into increase entropy .. cos Im now a tad confused lol Cos isnt what Fist and Z are talking about .. kinda opposite

Yeah ok I'll fuck off

[Vraith]

Cos isnt what Fist and Z are talking about .. kinda opposite

Not the opposite, no. I was just noting a point about the other end---the beginning.
Because if there were no entropy, the stuff would never have cooled down and condensed into quarks and gluons...
Pretty much everything we call "order" now is the product of entropy in process...
In the first instant, the universe wasn't smeared OUT all over...it was smeared IN all nowhere....and without entropy, nothing would have happened....probably.

[peter]

Does that 'probably' mean that the maths allows for it all to happen without entropy, but just much more likely to occur with it (like say a snooker ball could fall into a given pocket without actually being directed into it by a snooker cue - it's just less likely) - or does it mean that we don't actually know because the math isn't in place yet - but it's likely that when it is, entropy will be an essential element in the process? The answer to this probably requires a fairly deep knowledge of where the theoretical physics framework stands in relation to the starting point of the universe.....?.?.......but I'm confident that the answer will be forthcoming!

[Vraith]

Does that 'probably' mean that the maths allows for it all to happen without entropy, but just much more likely to occur with it (like say a snooker ball could fall into a given pocket without actually being directed into it by a snooker cue - it's just less likely) - or does it mean that we don't actually know because the math isn't in place yet - but it's likely that when it is, entropy will be an essential element in the process? The answer to this probably requires a fairly deep knowledge of where the theoretical physics framework stands in relation to the starting point of the universe.....?.?.......but I'm confident that the answer will be forthcoming!

Nah...it just means I don't know and have never heard any proposal/idea that gets from there to here without entropy.

Heh...what do you think about the idea that it isn't entropy---it LOOKS like entropy but is REALLY just a single 15billion-billion-yearish long, universe-sized quantum fluctuation that could just stop happening any second...

[Skyweir]

[peter]

Does that 'probably' mean that the maths allows for it all to happen without entropy, but just much more likely to occur with it (like say a snooker ball could fall into a given pocket without actually being directed into it by a snooker cue - it's just less likely) - or does it mean that we don't actually know because the math isn't in place yet - but it's likely that when it is, entropy will be an essential element in the process? The answer to this probably requires a fairly deep knowledge of where the theoretical physics framework stands in relation to the starting point of the universe.....?.?.......but I'm confident that the answer will be forthcoming!

Nah...it just means I don't know and have never heard any proposal/idea that gets from there to here without entropy.

Heh...what do you think about the idea that it isn't entropy---it LOOKS like entropy but is REALLY just a single 15billion-billion-yearish long, universe-sized quantum fluctuation that could just stop happening any second...

It makes me all warm and fuzzy.

[Skyweir]