I'm so fascinated by the second law of thermodynamics. The idea that energy diffuses, and all its implications, just boggles my brain.
When you put a drop of dye in water, it will spread out as far as it can until the concentration of the dye is equal and consistent throughout the entire substrate. That is the natural law of diffusion. Everything likes to spread out as far as it can unto equal concentration. The same goes if someone passes gas in a room o_O.
If a spaceship door is opened, since the void of space is empty (that's why it's called space) everything will be violently sucked out because of this same tendency to diffuse! The air wants, desperately, to spread out evenly through space. And, well, space is very empty, and there is lots of it.
When I have a hot cup of coffee, it sits on my desk, and I get so absorbed in writing that by the time I go to drink it, it is cold. Why is it cold? Because the heat-energy wants to diffuse. The air around it is colder, the desk is colder, and so the heat happily moves along to these colder things in its mission to be consistent.
Everything wants to spread out. There are no mountains on the ocean. Mountains take energy after all. The surface of water is flat because all the water spreads out to the path of least resistance.
Potential energy wants to be released! A lot of energy was put into making your average stone. It wants to release its energy and break into sand, into dust! An enormous amount of energy was put into building a city. People ate carrots, full of energy from the sun, their bodies extracted the energy from the carrots to be used by their muscles and brains. But energy diffuses, and so eventually the city will all crumble (unless more energy is added to maintain it).
Suns will burn out. Planets will grow cold. Solid objects will break up into smaller and smaller objects. Everything made will eventually be unmade. Everything gathered will be spread out again. Pressure will be released. Gravity will be satisfied. Things will get simpler, and smaller, and colder.
One day everything will be even, released, empty, broken down, spread out, cold and consistent.
But happily for now, here on Earth, for some reason that nobody knows for sure, things keep getting more complicated, more advanced, more built up, and more sophisticated. Weird.
SPF
Things spread out because it is the statistically most probable state. Earth is only odd when looked at as an isolated system. When you add what the Sun is doing into the equation it isn't so odd anymore. To support this increasing complexity the Sun is spewing forth a lot of energy/mass. Looking at any system in isolation would defy the second law. For instance people go from baby to child to adult. This is an increase in the size and complexity of the system. But when you look at the tons of food and air we consumed to get that way the second law rears its ugly head again.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story for you though. Boltzmann (a large reason for the 2nd law) came up with his law S = k * log(W) but nobody believed him. He was convinced of it and preached it until he died but people still didn't believe him. So his wife had it engraved onto his tombstone as a spit in the face of the scientists who doubt him. Years later he was found to be absolutely correct.
http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/icons/boltzmann/P7140524.JPG
What is startling however is the "log" term in the equation. The abundance of "e," and "ln" (log base e) in nature is astounding and something science/math hasn't explained yet.
Yes, yes, true. But the sun gives raw energy in the form of radiation! That does nothing but speed up the process of deterioration! Unless, of course, that radiation is harnessed by a complex system adept at converting it to useful energy. Those systems exist: plants using photosynthesis. But how did those develop into systems, while everything else was breaking apart? There must have been a creative thrust at some point. Complex machines harnessing the sun's energy, instead of being destroyed by it, don't just pop up out of nowhere. It would require photosynthesis to develop the biotechnology for photosynthesis!
ReplyDeleteI'll check that link out =)
It suddenly occurred to me that it is a strange thing to say that things spread out because that is the most statistically probable state.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, 'spread out' IS the most probable state, but that can hardly be the REASON why things become spread, right?
I mean if I were to, let's say, finish high school with a B average, that would indeed be the most statistically probable average to have, since it is the most common. Yet, that would say nothing about the REASON why I received a B average. The reason would have to do with what I achieved and didn't achieve.
Of course I know nothing about physics, but I don't think statistic probability is a CAUSE, or force, so to speak, so much as just an observation on the most common state of things. Correct me if I'm wrong...
Okay, this has to do with the distinction between a law and a theory. A law is a description of observable facts whereas a theory is an explanation. So the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the observation that particles tend to diffuse in a manner consistent with probability. What is actually going on (many scientists believe) is that particles are interacting by means of electromagnetic, strong/weak nuclear and gravitational force. They are passing gluons, photons, gravitons that cause them to move about. When you consider that a single mole of a substance contains 10^23 particles to consider even one of these forces would be (10^23)! and so to consider all four would be 4*(10^23)! (the exclamation mark means factorial) (also keep in mind particles are built up of even smaller particles). Then we need would need to break each one down in terms of f(x,y,z,t) (a function of these four variables) and so would have 4*f(x,y,z,t)*(10^23)!. Okay great so option 1) devote every human in the world for all of time to calculating the dispersion of a single mole of substance and by the time you come up with a result it is meaningless because that state is long since passed or 2) say it probabilistically disperses and fuck it to the individual particles.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, particles move out away from each other (usually) because they are far less likely to experience a "collision" in that direction. You open the doors of Walmart on Black Friday and people disperse outward because they are trying to avoid cart collisions and apparently, according to recent news, being maced in the face.
The second law doesn't attempt to explain the movement of a single particle. So your analogy of receiving a B is off. Plus nobody has yet observed a force that dictates letter grades, we are all anxiously awaiting though.
Evolution does have a lot more explaining to do in the area of photosynthesis. However already it is beginning to give some insight into how it developed. The issue is of course that scientists are limited by the fossil record or looking at diversity in the current world. There are different types of photosynthesis and they are adapted or are adapting to different environmental needs.
In the first paragraph you completely lost me. I don't have a degree in physics remember ;)
ReplyDeleteSo, particles spread out because they are less likely to experience collisions. I didn't know that, but it makes sense... Or isn't it rather that they spread out because they DO experience collisions and are driven away from one another?
The example of receiving a B was just to illustrate what I mean about the difference between a result and a cause. I didn't receive a B BECAUSE it was the most likely grade to receive!
I can say to those scientists with some degree of confidence that if you burn primordial soup for billions of years with radiation from the sun, it will certainly not develop into ANYTHING, least of all an extraordinarily complex machine like a leaf.
Again, it's a matter of stubbornly covering one's eyes and ears to the obvious (that the leaf was clearly creatively engineered), and spending endless eons of futile research to come up with any feasible theory as to how the leaf may have come about on it's own. Madness!