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Entropy

Eventual Consistency
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Entropy is the loss of energy available to do work. 1)

In the process of increasing entropy, one unusual outcome is that matter may become more organized:

  • As in the case of gravity, where gas clouds collapse and form stars.
  • As in the case of weather, where a hurricane forms because of heat dissipation from the earth.
  • As in the case of crystalline ice, as heat transfers from the warmer water to the cooler air.
  • As in the creation of life, where RNA molecules became catalysts that break down complex molecules in replicating themselves.

Is it possible, that entropy is a drive for creating organized formations? Organization forms because it speeds up the process of creating entropy?

One answer: “Entropy is the tendency for heat energy to become evenly distributed over time in a closed, isolated system. Entropy can be quantified and that is what makes it a useful concept in physics. The concepts of order vs disorder, organization vs chaos, determined vs random, these are mental operations, human judgment on the state of affairs of a condition and cannot be quantified nor is there any useful application in physics. You can measure and talk about the distribution of heat energy and its tendency toward even distribution, but you cannot measure the degree of order of a system; that is our judgment, not a feature of physical reality.” 2)

Entropy drives the consumption of potential energy, but is there a law that chooses the route by which the consumption takes place? Or is the route governed by natural phenomena already categorized into existing laws?

I wonder if there was a way to predict organized formations because of their propensity to increase the rate of entropy. Then one can say with certainty: “Life formed because life was great at increasing entropy.”

Entropy potential intertwined with potential energy.

Scientists are trying to make computer models of molecular interactions, such as the 3 dimensional folding of proteins, which requires a lot of statistical analysis regarding the chance of formation. Eventually, maybe the conditions required for the formation of life can be modeled. Maybe new theories will form as we continue to explore.

Discussion

Robert C Sundahl, 2021/03/09 00:14
You have it exactly opposite of what an increase in entropy entails. An organized system has LOWER entropy than a disorganized system. Take a glass of water and a glass of alcohol. When you mix them, you have increased the entropy of the universe. You can un-mix them through a distillation process. But at the expense of dissipated heat which would increase the entropy of the universe more than you recovered by separating the two components.

There is a discipline called statistical thermodynamics that permits one to calculate the difference in entropy between organized and disorganized systems.

The calculations of molecular structures using quantum theory is now an exact science, limited by the complexity of the structure being considered.
Marcos Reyes, 2021/04/24 17:41
Sorry for the delayed reply as I just saw your comment. I'm not sure how I have the opposite of what Entropy is. All my examples are that of increasing entropy, as with any practical increase in time. I'm talking about how matter may organize, at least by human perception, if the organization increases the rate of entropy production. Is that a human perception, or does the process of organization make room for another law of physics? Current law states **only** that Entropy increases with time, and speaks nothing about the tendency for entropy to increase by the fastest possible path. The fastest possible path may form organized matter if in so doing, the rate of entropy formation is increased.
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physics/entropy.txt · Last modified: 2023/12/21 04:33 by 127.0.0.1