[Permanently_Baffled]

Thanks Smiley, I read some more of S.Hawkings 'Brief history of time' last night. That cleared it all up for me....

How I would love to know where that singularity came from , maybe it was really a zit on the anus of god or something!! Just got popped and so we had the big bang and the universe was created!

PB

[smiley]

OK I'll try to explain it in laymans terms. But first let me reiterate that I do not object against the second law, I just question the way we interpret the concept of entropy.

Imagine an extremely large box, which is hermetically sealed; the ideal closed system. In that box is a gas, uniformly dispersed; the ultimate form of disorder.

Now imagine that in the box there is a tiny section with a larger density than the remainder of the box. Since the density is locally somewhat larger than the remainder of the gas that section is going to exert a gravitational pull on the gas around it. Gas starts flowing toward the density variation.

As more and more gas starts to be contained by the aberration the gravitational pull becomes stronger until all the gas has been absorbed and the gas will first liquefy and then crystallize. The content of the box has thus become ordered.

If you say that entropy equals disorder then the entropy should have lowered. But that can't be possible in a closed system. If we assume that the second law is correct (as I do) then we must get rid of the idea that entropy equal disorder.

Entropy itself does not distinguish between order and disorder. Whether a system will become ordered or disordered depends on the presence of interactions. When there are no interactions the system remains chaotic. However when you do have interactions (such as gravity), then the system can and will become statically or dynamically ordered. This is the basis of chaos theory.

Such events and such interactions are not rare, they are the norm. They are the reason why we can find so many ordered things on our planet and so little truly unordered things. Sometimes the scale of the order surpasses our imagination. For a lice walking on a carpet, it might seem a random bunch of colored fibers instead of a well-woven design. But the overwhelming majority of things we know is ordered.

[DefiledEngine]

Entropy itself does not distinguish between order and disorder. Whether a system will become ordered or disordered depends on the presence of interactions. When there are no interactions the system remains chaotic. However when you do have interactions (such as gravity), then the system can and will become statically or dynamically ordered. This is the basis of chaos theory.

Such events and such interactions are not rare, they are the norm. They are the reason why we can find so many ordered things on our planet and so little truly unordered things. Sometimes the scale of the order surpasses our imagination. For a lice walking on a carpet, it might seem a random bunch of colored fibers instead of a well-woven design. But the overwhelming majority of things we know is ordered.

I have yet to see or hear ANY proof that gas ALWAYS spontanously forms solid crystals in closed systems. Care to bring proof?

Our world is NOT a closed system. It is something that constantly recieves energy to increase order. This is the whole order in randomness thing Chaos Theory speaks of. The norm? Hardly. Life can exist because it is an open system, trading stuff with its environment continously.

The basis of chaos theory is, as far as I know, that it is basically impossible to predict how things will move within a chaotic system. Gravity isn't really an issue, since the force is often quite neglible.

[RepubCarrier]

how are those physicists doing on that "Theory of Everything", which was supposed to discover one unified force that was behind electric, magnetic, nuclear, and gravitational forces? i remember reading about it a few years ago, no idea what has become of this.... but I imagine that would have some relevant consequences for the world of energy

[0mar]

AFAIK, ZPenergy doesn't break the second law. Particles come into being spontaneously at the expense of energy. They then break down extremely quickly (on the order of planck time 10^-43 seconds), releasing that borrowed energy.

Quantum theory is f'ed up. So glad I went into biology

[MonteQuest]

Exactly,
The laws of tdym (couldnt be bothered to type out that word) are not laws but merely indications, or generalisations.
The worst "law" is the first.
Read this extract from alternative science to find the history of that "law" and how it came about.
http://www.alternativescience.com/perpetual_motion.htm

You have got to be kidding. No one has ever proven them wrong. Here's Einstein's take on the laws of thermodynamics:

Thermodynamics is the only physical theory of universal content which, within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, I am convinced will never be overthrown.” Albert Einstein

[pilferage]

You have got to be kidding. No one has even proven them wrong.

Just because no one has proven them wrong so far doesn't mean they won't be proven wrong in the future. They're just extensions of mathematics used to describe our environment, and as such I don't think they can ever be proven to be consistent.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Consistency.html
IIRC most systems in math can't be proven consistent
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoedelsInc ... eorem.html
and math is essentially something we've made up in our minds over the past god knows how long!

[MonteQuest]

You have got to be kidding. No one has even proven them wrong.

Just because no one has proven them wrong so far doesn't mean they won't be proven wrong in the future. They're just extensions of mathematics used to describe our environment, and as such I don't think they can ever be proven to be consistent.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Consistency.html
IIRC most systems in math can't be proven consistent
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoedelsInc ... eorem.html
and math is essentially something we've made up in our minds over the past god knows how long!

You have got to be kidding... Ever seen water flow uphill on its own? No? And you never will either. That is pretty consistent. I suggest you do a little more reading on the subject. Having a grasp of these laws is a crucial part of our future.

[pilferage]

You have got to be kidding... Ever seen water flow uphill on its own? No? And you never will either. That is pretty consistent. I suggest you do a little more reading on the subject. Having a grasp of these laws is a crucial part of our future.

I've done quite a bit of reading actually, I'm on the verge of getting my BS in Pure Math. Naturally I've taken the normal calc based physics that most math/physics/engineering students are required to take...
and what I've come to find is that some day I just might see water flow uphill on it's own. Most people didn't think relativity was possible, but it is. I'm confident that (given the chance) we'll realize more and refine our desciption of the universe more.

[MonteQuest]

What I've come to find is that some day I just might see water flow uphill on it's own.

I'll let that quote stand by itself as my retort.

[pilferage]

What I've come to find is that some day I just might see water flow uphill on it's own.

I'll let that quote stand by itself as my retort.

I'm just saying that some day we may have something that is able to reverse the force due to gravity, and then water would flow... er, kinda fly, upward.

[MonteQuest]

What I've come to find is that some day I just might see water flow uphill on it's own.

I'll let that quote stand by itself as my retort.

I'm just saying that some day we may have something that is able to reverse the force due to gravity, and then water would flow... er, kinda fly, upward.

Then it won't flow uphill on its own will it? There are no free lunches. It takes energy. Cold will not ever flow to heat, ever. It doesn't take any math to know this, merely observation. Math explains the physical phenomena we observe.

[pilferage]

Then it won't flow uphill on its own will it? There are no free lunches. It takes energy. Cold will not ever flow to heat, ever. It doesn't take any math to know this, merely observation. Math explains the physical phenomena we observe.

It won't flow downhill of it's own accord either. Like you said, it takes energy...
I'm just saying that stating the laws of physics are immutable is kinda silly in a universe where the only constant I've seen is change.

[MonteQuest]

[quote]Thermodynamics is the only physical theory of universal content which, within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, I am convinced will never be overthrown.â€

[MonteQuest]

I'm just saying that stating the laws of physics are immutable is kinda silly in a universe where the only constant I've seen is change.

And this constant change you see is called the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law of Entropy. The constant random movement towards disorder. You have just been hoisted by your own petard!

[pilferage]

I'm just saying that stating the laws of physics are immutable is kinda silly in a universe where the only constant I've seen is change.

And this constant change you see is called the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law of Entropy. The constant random movement towards disorder. You have just been hoisted by your own petard!

I have not!
Constant change does not always imply disorder...
well maybe in classical physics it does (if you insist on only using it), but classical physics is not the be all, end all of our insight into the universe. Check this out if you have time...
http://quic.ulb.ac.be/publications/1997-PRL-79-5194.pdf

[TrueKaiser]

I'm just saying that stating the laws of physics are immutable is kinda silly in a universe where the only constant I've seen is change.

And this constant change you see is called the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law of Entropy. The constant random movement towards disorder. You have just been hoisted by your own petard!

i have to agree with MonteQuest here.

[MonteQuest]

I'm just saying that stating the laws of physics are immutable is kinda silly in a universe where the only constant I've seen is change.

And this constant change you see is called the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Law of Entropy. The constant random movement towards disorder. You have just been hoisted by your own petard!

I have not!
Constant change does not always imply disorder...
well maybe in classical physics it does (if you insist on only using it), but classical physics is not the be all, end all of our insight into the universe. Check this out if you have time...
http://quic.ulb.ac.be/publications/1997-PRL-79-5194.pdf

Something wrong with the link you posted. As to the dilemma before us regarding peak oil and the time constraints involved, the Laws of Thermodynamics is the end all and be all of our near future. Efforts by anyone to dispute this can be confined to a fool's errand.

[khebab]

Constant change does not always imply disorder...
well maybe in classical physics it does (if you insist on only using it), but classical physics is not the be all, end all of our insight into the universe. Check this out if you have time...
http://quic.ulb.ac.be/publications/1997-PRL-79-5194.pdf

Classical physics laws can be broken at nanoscale where quantum laws are prevailing. Particle entanglement, tunelling effects, etc. seem to be in violation with classical laws. That's conceptually nice, the trouble is that all these effects disappear quickly at microscale because of interference particles behaving like waves is no longer a pertinent model. You can prove a lot of crazy stuff at nanoscale: wormholes are possible, time machine, teleportation, etc. but everything disappear at our scale.

[MonteQuest]

Classical physics laws can be broken at nanoscale where quantum laws are prevailing. Particle entanglement, tunelling effects, etc. seem to be in violation with classical laws. That's conceptually nice, the trouble is that all these effects disappear quickly at microscale because of interference particles behaving like waves is no longer a pertinent model. You can prove a lot of crazy stuff at nanoscale: wormholes are possible, time machine, teleportation, etc. but everything disappear at our scale.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the disorder of the Universe can only increase in time, but the equations of classical and quantum mechanics, the laws that govern the behaviour of the very small, are time reversible. A few years ago, a tentative theoretical solution to this paradox was proposed - the so-called Fluctuation Theorem - stating that the chances of the Second Law being violated increases as the system in question gets smaller.

This means that at human scales, the Second Law dominates and machines only ever run in one direction. However, when working at molecular scales and over extremely short periods of time, things can take place in either direction. Now, scientists have demonstrated that principle experimentally. Professor Denis Evans and colleagues at the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University put 100 tiny beads into a water-filled container. They fired a laser beam at one of the beads, electrically charging the tiny particle and trapping it.

The container holding the beads was then moved from side to side a thousand times a second so that the trapped bead would be dragged first one way and then the other. The researchers discovered that in such a tiny system, entropy can sometimes decrease rather than increase. This effect was seen when the researchers looked at the bead's behaviour for a tenth of a second. Any longer and the effect was lost. This is the only known experiment that I am aware of. Disproving 2nd Law consistency for a tenth of a second does not hold much hope for me in solving the issue of peak oil. And in this experiment, it seems that shaking the container was adding kenetic energy to the closed system. False results? Dunno...In our peak-oil macro world, 2nd Law cannot be questioned, nor is it.