OK, I know it is theoretically possible for entropy to decrease, but has it ever been observed?
To give more detail, I'm sure you've all seen videos and presentations explaining entropy, the typical example of the square with half red dots and half blue dots, then the dots slowly scatter and that scattering is entropy. However, it is technically possible for those dots to scatter back into the original organized version. Does nature work the same way?
Ok! Try this one.
Entropy gives direction to time and we can observe the effects of time. Imagine if your blue and red dots was an egg on a table and it rolls off the edge and falls to the ground where it splatters much like the dots scatter. As long as entropy travels in that direction it will never be a part of nature for the egg to slowly unsplatter, rise up to the table and roll back to the middle.
I suggest that a property of life is reversal of entropy. While entropy is always at work, life resists it. It may well be that entropy will win over the longest term, but in the short term life resists it.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd - Voltaire
It is very unlikely that a reversible reaction will spontaneously fully reverse in a closed system at a macroscopic scale.Quote by: badahiploopapa
At our scale, thermodynamics is essentially absolute. The probability of you suffocating because all the oxygen decided to drift into one corner of the room while nitrogen crowded around you is small. In a normal room full of many moles of oxygen and nitrogen this will probably never happen in the lifetime of the universe.
However, if you only have two red gas molecules and two blue gas molecules in a box and each one is either on one side of the line or the other then there are only four distinct permutations and two of those permutations will have 100% purity on each side - it won't take long to occur, but it won't last very long either.
At an even smaller subatomic scale... don't get me started, but thermodynamics as you know it stops working. It does not go away but it becomes more subtle and more complex.
You can also "cheat" and use energy from an outside source to move macroscopic amounts of oxygen to one side and force it into a canister, so long as you have appropriate machinery, energy and a way to dissipate heat into space. Earth is not a closed system, so you can do all kinds of stuff.
The more you complain, the less I care about your problems.
Could we say that, given a limitless amount of time, entropy could completely reset itself?
If you have truly infinite time then... it will be kind of a silly way to get around the problem, but I can't reason out why it wouldn't work.
The more you complain, the less I care about your problems.
Lastly, is there a maximum amount of entropy something can have? I guess if you had a room that started with half oxygen on one side and half nitrogen on the other that would be maximum order, so is there maximum entropy?
Are you asking a science like mathematics for a string of symbols that prove it or are you asking a philosopher to take his /hers best shot?
I'd definitely go for a string of mathematics. I might have trouble understanding it at first, but I'll research until I get it.
Maybe some pertinent info. Disorder — A Cracked Crutch For Supporting Entropy Discussions
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
Most certainly. With birth and growth of every living creature, plant or animal, that ever came into existance.
No.To give more detail, I'm sure you've all seen videos and presentations explaining entropy, the typical example of the square with half red dots and half blue dots, then the dots slowly scatter and that scattering is entropy. However, it is technically possible for those dots to scatter back into the original organized version. Does nature work the same way?
Even if the system is in equilibrium you could still increase the entropy of the system arbitrarily by increasing the temperature.
The more you complain, the less I care about your problems.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks