Entropy/lose the math, need laypersons def..

[Succubus]

[Jackie]

I guess the use of "Low" vs "high" are counter intuitive to me. 

I know the feeling.  Some years ago, I audited a uni course in urban pest management (no real reason, it was just something that sounded interesting).

It turns out that all pesticides have a value called 'LD50', which is essentially a measure of how toxic a particular chemical compound is.  The counter intuitive bit is that the lower the number, the higher the toxicity.  You'd think it'd be the other way round.

Boru

THANK YOU and once again, that really helps.

I know scientists are human like everyone, but when they create languages, it is like humans in general go out of their way to create unique language just so they can control the data.

Even with food. Caviar is FUCKING FISH EGGS.

Where the hell where you when I was growing up?

[Jackie]

Boru, gonna go watch my Skins leave me for the Cardinals but I intend on writing a poem about this metaphor "She left me for the drummer" when I get back, remind me.

[Pat Mustard]

Is it the idea of going from more order to less order? 

If I read it right, and based on my watching videos of the singularity, scientists are saying that back then, it was more ordered, and now what we observe is less ordered? 

If that is the case, then why do we see now ordered galaxies and solar systems? Or is that a result of expansion creating so much random distance between bodies because of temp differences and cooling?

Whatever you respond with, PLEASE DUMB IT DOWN to a children's party animal balloon metaphor if you can.

"Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold"
WB Yeats.

[Jackie]

"I Got Left For The Drummer" By Brian37(inspired by Boru) (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

Entropy
All my order seem so far away
I'm not as organized as I used to be
All because of entropy

When I was a kid
I played jacks
Bounced the ball
And marbles I bet

And over time
I won and won
Collected and sorted
All of them

Some red
Some blue
Some cat eye
Some big and small

I sorted them
Every one
Neatly by size
And color too

But then you
My girlfriend
Decided our
Relationship would end

Your quantum twitch
In a text
You left me for the drummer
And that was it

The box of marlbles
So well ordered
After that text
Of you I abhored

In my heat
My fit of rage
I picked it up
And all displaced

The inflation
Marbles all over the place
You took my order
And made it a mess.

[ignoramus]

I like this brief vid on entropy.



I learnt that people associate entropy with disorder. Apparently that's not so true.

Basically things turn to a disordered state with time simply because there are more way of atoms combining in a disordered way than combining in an ordered way?
Not really rocket science when you think of it that way...

[Jackie]

I like this brief vid on entropy.



I learnt that people associate entropy with disorder. Apparently that's not so true.

Basically things turn to a disordered state with time simply because there are more way of atoms combining in a disordered way than combining in an ordered way?
Not really rocket science when you think of it that way...

Um while this guy is not wrong,  he said what I have known for a long time, you have to talk all the laws into account.

But that does not negate itself, the more ordered state at the singularity as compared to less ordered now after 13.8 billion years. But sure you can go from less order to more order. 

I was simply having a hard time visualizing the difference. I think Boru's metaphor still works. In Boru's scattered box of marbles example, sure later on "time" can also allow localized order.

[Magilla]

It's actually far more simple than that.

Entropy:

A thermodynamic quantity representing the amount of energy in a system that is no longer available for doing mechanical work."

The second law of thermodynamics:
Place a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water in a perfectly insulated container. This is a disordered state. Over a period of time the hot water will cool down and the cold water will heat up. Now you have equilibrium, an ordered state, maximum entropy. no work can be done, ie, no more energy can pass from one body to the other.

Surely . . .

---

The second law of thermodynamics :

Place a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water in a perfectly insulated container. This is an ordered state. Over a period of time the hot water will cool down and the cold water will heat up. Now you have equilibrium, a disordered state, maximum entropy. no work can be done, ie, no more energy can pass from one body to the other.

---

Initially the system is ordered, with higher energy located in one region, middle energy in another, and ground energy dispersed around. That is order, because - you can find something - where the high energy is located. As with a teenager's bedroom, if the socks are in the sock drawer, the underwear in the underwear drawer, the shirts and pants in the wardrobe, that is an ordered state - you can find something - eg. socks in the sock drawer. If the teenager is untidy, the socks could be anywhere, (under the bed, on the window sill etc.), as would all of the other contents of the untidy room. Things are to be found in no special place, and it is disordered.

With the two glass example, the principle is that the energy will re-locate, to be more and more evenly distributed, within the isolated, (insulated), system. As that energy goes through the process of relocating, it can be harnessed to do some work.

Once the system has stabilised, the energy is evenly distributed throughout, and there is no trend in the movement in the energy. { Energy may move about, but equally in every direction. Thus it can no longer be harnessed to do work, since any thrust in vector direction X (=>), is countered by an equal and opposite thrust in vector direction -X (<=) }.

Two glasses in an isolated system is a very small system; we are making the assumption, for instance, that there is nothing else in that system, ie. it's just two glasses of water, an insulated perimeter, and whatever the ground medium happens to be, (maybe air or a vacuum).

The universe is huge, and localised regions, (which may be vast, eg. the solar system), can be harnessed, to result in some sub-regions that are even lower in entropy, (ie. possibly more organised), at the expense of some creation of a higher level of entropy in another sub-locality. In other words, if left alone, the entropy will go up overall throughout, but it may be that entropy lowers in one place and raises in another, so that entropy will still go up overall throughout.

It is entirely possible for the entropy to lessen in one place, and rise more so than if left alone, in another place. In this case, overall the entropy will have risen on average, in agreeance with the 2LoT, (Second Law of Thermodynamics). So entropy goes down in one place, and correspondingly up even more in another. Of course, for this to happen, requires some form of "engine" ~ maybe a living cell's structure, a steam engine etc.

[surreptitious57]

Entropy is not technically disorder but the equilibrium of lower energy states
Saying it is disorder is oversimplifying it and providing an inaccurate definition

Also the Second Law Of Thermodynamics does not say that entropy will increase over time. But instead it says that it will not decrease over time
A subtle and important distinction. This is generally rather than absolutely true due to the fact that there might be different levels of entropy with
in the same system if it is sufficiently large. Such as for example the Universe which is the only known example of an isolated system that there is

---

There is no such thing as a singularity. They are forbidden by quantum mechanics. The hypothetical point of infinite density that
is supposedly compressed into a space of zero volume can never be attained as it is asymptotic. Both Hawking and Penrose who
originally formulated the singularity theorem in 1970 eventually discarded it and it has not been a credible hypothesis since then

[I_am_not_mafia]

The glass of hot water next to the glass of cold water is a perfect example of a thermodynamic gradient.