Tanda,
I have had the same experience.
However, Entropy in not philosophical any more than Gravity is philosophical.
Yes, the individual flakes you toss up into the pile have less entropy once you have stacked them. But in the process you have burned calories, increasing the entropy of stuff in your body. In sum total the entropy of the Universe has increased.
It's sort of like perpetual motion, nice idea, won't happen.
BTW: I presume it was you how merged the threads. Thanks. I need to go back and wander through this stuff a bit.
PeakOil is You
THE Entropy Thread (merged)
Re: THE Entropy Thread (merged)
by Newfie » Wed 05 Feb 2014, 12:14:58
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Re: THE Entropy Thread (merged)
by Tanada » Wed 05 Feb 2014, 13:10:16
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'T')anda,
I have had the same experience.
However, Entropy in not philosophical any more than Gravity is philosophical.
Yes, the individual flakes you toss up into the pile have less entropy once you have stacked them. But in the process you have burned calories, increasing the entropy of stuff in your body. In sum total the entropy of the Universe has increased.
It's sort of like perpetual motion, nice idea, won't happen.
BTW: I presume it was you how merged the threads. Thanks. I need to go back and wander through this stuff a bit.
I have had the same experience.
However, Entropy in not philosophical any more than Gravity is philosophical.
Yes, the individual flakes you toss up into the pile have less entropy once you have stacked them. But in the process you have burned calories, increasing the entropy of stuff in your body. In sum total the entropy of the Universe has increased.
It's sort of like perpetual motion, nice idea, won't happen.
BTW: I presume it was you how merged the threads. Thanks. I need to go back and wander through this stuff a bit.
Can't take credit for the merge, I just dug up this old thread because I was feeling philosophical and it seemed like the right place for my post. I hear what you are saying about net entropy, but I don't necessarily buy into the argument. You see my personal entropy was going to increase no matter if I were using the Elliptical exercise machine or shoveling snow, so the net entropy gain for the Universe was a wash.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: THE Entropy Thread (merged)
by Newfie » Wed 05 Feb 2014, 14:30:42
Sorry T, your personal Entropy exists for you alone. So it may be a wash in your world, but not in the physical Universe.
I thought you had merged this with the recent Meaning of Life thread. Would be nice if that happened. Wink, wink?
I thought you had merged this with the recent Meaning of Life thread. Would be nice if that happened. Wink, wink?
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Re: THE Entropy Thread (merged)
by Newfie » Wed 05 Feb 2014, 14:34:10
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'S')orry T, your personal Entropy exists for you alone. So it may be a wash in your world, but not in the physical Universe.
I thought you had merged this with the recent Meaning of Life thread. Would be nice if that happened. Wink, wink?
I thought you had merged this with the recent Meaning of Life thread. Would be nice if that happened. Wink, wink?
physicist-discovers-meaning-of-life-t69194.html
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Re: THE Entropy Thread (merged)
by dissident » Wed 05 Feb 2014, 17:19:21
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'A')s I was just outside shoveling snow out of my driveway and having to pitch the snow up over the peak of the pile on the edge which now stands five feet high I got to thinking.
Entropy is the philosophical belief that things always grow less complex with time, yet here I was taking a blowing collection of very simple snow flakes and making them into an ever growing more complex more layered pile of mixed snow and ice fragments.
Just saying.
Entropy is the philosophical belief that things always grow less complex with time, yet here I was taking a blowing collection of very simple snow flakes and making them into an ever growing more complex more layered pile of mixed snow and ice fragments.
Just saying.
Entropy is not about simplicity. It is the thermodynamic law that disorder increases with time. Disorder does not mean homogeneity and uniformity. That would be anti-entropic.
Your activity is associated with the expenditure of energy. As you create your little bit of snow pile order you are releasing heat into the air around you. You cannot recycle that heat to keep piling the snow. A clear entropy increasing process. There is no rule that says that entropy has to increase both globally and locally for all time. Then there would be no order at all. You can still have local entropy decrease at the expense of a global entropy increase.
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