Entropy

I was always taught that the Second Law of Thermodynamics was a "tendency towards entropy." In this case, entropy was defined as "lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder." Thus, the Law was presented as a breaking down of the natural order of things into chaos-- i.e. a tree is an ordered thing, but the Second Law demands that it die and decompose into it's constituent components.

This is wrong, both as in terms of what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is, and as a logical construct.

If you define entropy as the breaking down of things, then the most broken down things could be would be down to subatomic particles with no relationship with any other particle. The least relationship possible would be to have all particles evenly spaced across the universe, which is not chaotic at all, but in fact the most perfectly symmetrical order possible. So in that case, the Second Law of Thermodynamics would be the tendency towards the simplest, most uniform order. As a logical construct, the first definition is really a reflection of human ego, based on the assumption that what is best and sensible for us as individuals or as a species is of a higher organization rather than just some weird, random organization of carbon particles into a maple tree instead of a spruce.

Sadly, that's only sort of what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says. It really seems to be more about the loss of efficiency in converting between energy and work. Although the loss of efficiency is expressed as "entropy", which is still maybe not right due to the aforementioned hubris of humanity, the possible mischaracterization of the process doesn't really break the law. That's kind of disappointing, since I like the idea that everything we think we know about the universe is actually pretty wrong.

Captain Chaos says entropy may not be what you think it is!

#nerd