[pilferage]

I think we're missing my point (from my first point).

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pilferage', 'I') think we're missing my point (from my first point).

[pilferage]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'T')hey are physical observations that have been explained by mathematics. They have been consistent enough to take us to the moon and back a few times. I don't think we need any more proof of consistency than that.

[MonteQuest]

Here's a little history and an explanation on the Second Law of Thermodynamics that I posted on another thread. I think it's worthy of a repeat here:

Sadi Carnot was a French theorist who studied the workings of the steam engine to abstract the essence of what an engine was all about. He discovered that heat energy at high temperature is capable of driving an engine and doing work. The same amount of energy at low temperature is not capable of doing useful work. The same amount of energy is still there, but something has changed. That something is what we call entropy. Carnot made an assumption that it is impossible to get something for nothing. This reasoning is what we call 2nd Law. He didn't discover the law or prove it, he just assumed it. It is an axiom whose verification lies in the fact that all predictions made on the basis of it always turn out to be true. Always, at least in the macro world that concerns us with regard to energy transfers..

2nd Law says you can't build a machine that will extract heat at low temperature and deposit that same amount of energy at higher temperature, without having any other effect. Take a refrigerator, for example. It removes heat from the food inside and dumps that energy at higher temperature into your kitchen. Here we can see entropy being decreased. But in order for your refrigerator to function, there must be another engine somewhere that is burning fuel to create heat at high temperature to create electricity to run your refrigerator. 2nd Law doesn't say heat can't be forced uphill or against a thermal gradient, but that the net effect of the power plant and your refrigerator running in tandem must always be to make heat run downhill or along the thermal gradient from high temperature to low. In other words, to run your refrigerator the power plant must always make more heat run downhill than the fridge makes run uphill. That principle is never violated. The result: an increase in overall entropy.

Gee, you say, if that is true, then you can't win! Yes, it is true, you can't. No free lunch. The principle that energy always runs from hot to cold is completely equivalent to saying entropy always increases. In an isolated system like the universe, this is a constant. In open and closed systems, like living organisms and the earth, entropy can be reversed or reduced at one point, but only with an even greater increase in entropy at another point. The rule of thumb used by engineers is that only about 1/3 of the energy in a heat source, such as a fossil fuel, can be used in another form such as electricity. Even more energy is lost when it is transmitted over power lines. So, while electric motors can be almost 100% efficient, the energy conversions required to turn a fossil fuel into electricity and transport it to power an electric motor results in only 1/3 of the energy in the fuel can be used. That is the inescapable consequence of the entropy imperative that rules the natural world.

[BabyPeanut]

From Nature and Knowledge - The philosophy of Contemporary Science By J. Bronowski, Condon Lectors, Oregon State System of Higher Education, Eugen, OR 1969 (no ISBN.)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('J. Bronowski', 'I')t is often said that the progression from simple to complex runs counter to the normal statistics of chance that are formalized in the Second Law of Thermodymics. But this interpretation quite misunderstands the character of statistical laws in general. The Second Law of Thermodynamics becomes a physical law only if there is added to it the condition that there are no preferred states or configurations. In itself, the Second Law merely enumerates all the configurations which a system could take up, and it remarks that the largest number in this count are average or featureless. Therefore if there are no preferred configurations (that is, no hidden stabilities in the system) we must expect that any special feature that we find is exceptional and temporary, and will revert to the average in the long run. This is a true theorem in combinatorial artithmetic, and (like other statistical laws) a fair guess at the behavior of long runs. But it tells us little about the natural world which, in the years since the Second Law seemed exciting, has turned out to be full of preferred configurations and hidden stabilities, even at the most basic and inanimate level of atomic structure.

[JohnDenver]

Not sure what this has to do with peak oil, but it's a great quote, BabyPeanut!

What if you atomized yourself in a container? If a chemist looked at the gas, they wouldn't find it special in any way, and would never suspect that there was "a person in there". But there is! One of the combinations is so stable and persistent that it will actually work to maintain its own stability.

The amazing thing is that the hidden preferred state was always there, as a latent possibility within the laws governing the atoms. It reminds me of Plato's theory that we "remember" the Ideas/Forms. The idea of the "human being" was already present in the tendencies of atoms, way before human beings ever appeared on the scene. At some point, the atoms just "remembered" us.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', 'F')rom Nature and Knowledge - The philosophy of Contemporary Science By J. Bronowski, Condon Lectors, Oregon State System of Higher Education, Eugen, OR 1969 (no ISBN.)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('J. Bronowski', 'I')t is often said that the progression from simple to complex runs counter to the normal statistics of chance that are formalized in the Second Law of Thermodymics. But this interpretation quite misunderstands the character of statistical laws in general. The Second Law of Thermodynamics becomes a physical law only if there is added to it the condition that there are no preferred states or configurations. In itself, the Second Law merely enumerates all the configurations which a system could take up, and it remarks that the largest number in this count are average or featureless. Therefore if there are no preferred configurations (that is, no hidden stabilities in the system) we must expect that any special feature that we find is exceptional and temporary, and will revert to the average in the long run. This is a true theorem in combinatorial artithmetic, and (like other statistical laws) a fair guess at the behavior of long runs. But it tells us little about the natural world which, in the years since the Second Law seemed exciting, has turned out to be full of preferred configurations and hidden stabilities, even at the most basic and inanimate level of atomic structure.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'S')ince the above quote is taken out of context and no link,

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MQ', 'S')o, when the dead starts walking and the ashes of long dead fires heat us in the winter, then 2nd law might enter the realm of statistical. Until then, it is the supreme law of the universe.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', ' ')Why doesn't entropy destroy electrons? Why don't they lose charge, lose spin, gain radius or decay? Are they exempt from the second law? What kind of a law needs a qualification like "oh yeah, except for all electrons"?

Maybe it's because the 2nd Law is statistical and only applies to most things but not preferred configurations.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', '
')Why doesn't entropy destroy electrons? Why don't they lose charge, lose spin, gain radius or decay? Are they exempt from the second law? What kind of a law needs a qualification like "oh yeah, except for all electrons"?

Maybe it's because the 2nd Law is statistical and only applies to most things but not preferred configurations.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'd')o fundamental particles such as the proton or electron decay?

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'I')f you are referring to micro quantum physics, that has only been shown to be the case for 1/10 of a second.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'd')o fundamental particles such as the proton or electron decay?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'I')f you are referring to micro quantum physics, that has only been shown to be the case for 1/10 of a second.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '[')So, you're looking at quarks or even strings, I suppose - but if we can't deal with protons, are we ready to do useful work with the others?

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'D')isproving 2nd Law consistency for a tenth of a second does not hold much hope for me in solving the issue of peak oil.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', ' ')I'm not trying to disprove the 2nd Law. I'm trying to understand it. How can human bodies exist along with entropy? How can a star start out with hydrogen and make iron? How can that iron end up in the hemoglobin in my blood? How can something so blatently and repeatedly fly in the face of entropy for so much time?

[BabyPeanut]

The point is that evolution decreases entropy.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BabyPeanut', 'T')he point is that evolution decreases entropy.