KeithHarwood

Capitalism => you can win.
Socialism => you can break even.
Mysticism => you can leave the game.

Doubting Didymus

IF the earth was a closed system, total entropy would increase, and evolution might violate the law. However, since it is TOTAL entropy that must increase, LOCAL entropy can decrease at the expence of a SECOND local 'patch' of entropy. In this way, even if the earth WAS a closed system, with no input from the sun, life might still have evolved, feeding of the energy from the earths core, as deep sea life feeds off volcanic vents.

TOTAL entropy always increases, so any closed system must always 'wind down'. The second law, however, places NO restrictions on how the available energy can behave while the system is in the process of winding down.

Richiyaado

Capitalism: Your cow.
Socialism: Our cow.
Totalitarianism: Dead cow.
Mysticism: What cow?

Starboy

Hi Synaesthesia,

I am not sure if this post is directed at me, but if it is not, I apologize for butting into your conversation with Sarboy. Thermodynamics is actually a misnomer, is should have been called thermostatics, but instead it is called thermodynamics, what should have been called thermodynamics is called non-equilibrium thermodynamics. I am assuming you are joking when you say that you can’t violate the second law because it is a law. In any case it only applies to closed systems, a system where no inputs or outputs are allowed. If you were to put life into any closed system, a system with no external inputs such as light from the sun or heat from the earth it would eventually run down and everything would die. The idea that the sun and earth constitute a closed system is also incorrect. The sun radiates a great deal of energy into the rest of the universe and a good deal of radiation an material is constanly being introduced into the solar system from the surrounding galaxy the Milky way. So it also is a non-equilibrium system. It is now a well-established principle in the physics of life on Earth, if there is an energy interface there is most likely to be life. This somewhat amazing idea is confirmed by life found at deep ocean thermal vents as well as hot springs and the cooling coils of nuclear reactors. What allows life to exist is that there is a constant flux of energy that can be tapped so that an organism can make a living.

The three “so called” laws of thermodynamics as used by physicists are stated as:

1. The amount of work required to change an adiabatically enclosed system from one state to another depends only on the initial and final states of the system, and is independent both of the way in which the work is performed and the path through which the system passes from the initial to the final state.

2. It is impossible for the universe to undergo a change, the only effect of which is the transfer of a positive amount of energy from a single heat reservoir to a work reservoir

3. The entropy of any system vanishes in those equilibrium states for which the temperature is zero. (This zero temperature is also know as absolute zero and is –273.15 deg C”

The usual way that 2 is understood is to realize that in the case where such change did occur it would have to be accompanied with a corresponding increase in entropy. Even though these are called laws they are really theorems since they can be derived from the four postulates of thermodynamics.

Thermodynamics is a theory not a fact. A theory is a model of a physical process or entity. A model of a thing is not the thing. It will never be the thing. A picture of a pipe is not a pipe. Try putting tobacco into it and smoke it! To call a theory like thermodynamics a fact is like mistaking a picture of a pipe for an actual pipe. If there is any fact surrounding thermodynamics it is that under the correct circumstances it can be used to predict the behavior of a specific set of physical systems with useful accuracy.

Starboy

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

tgamble

What's going on? There's no poster called Sarboy, it's a misspelling of Starboy. Are there two posters useing the same name? They even have the same member #.

I thought it was a law.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]</p>

Undercurrent

It doesn't bother Kent Hovind.

Ding Ding! We have a winner! If there was some magical law that prevented humans from arising from single cells over the course of several billion years, it would also prevent (adult) humans from arising from single cells over the course of two decades (which they routinely do.)

Vanna, tell GeoTheo what he's won.

Careful, there's nothing in thermodynamics that prohibits the existance of an immortal organism. "Entropy" is not the same as "Death" (and arguably, given uniformly livable conditions, amoebae are immortal.)

Basically, what the second law says is that if you put a hot object next to a cold object, and there's nothing else toching the two of them, the hot one will cool down and/or the cold one will heat up. Creationists like to turn this simple and obvious fact into a morality play.

m.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Michael ]</p>

DNAunion

DNAunion: Just to make sure we are on the same page... The original statements were basically correct.

First, I didn't see entropy equated with death: I took the statements to have listed them as two separate things ("death and entropy", kind of like "life and aging" are not the same).

Second, as correctly stated originally, when death does occur, entropy does increase. (Yes, total entropy does increase in all natural processes, but here I am limiting the scope to just the entity that died. Its entropy has increased.)

The only error I see in those original statements is the use of the single word "entropy" instead of a phrase like "increase in entropy". Entropy doesn't occur when something dies, an increase in entropy does.

Non-praying Mantis

You forgot:

Hinduism: Holy cow!

NPM

Starboy

If you want to look at the entropy of say the entire surface of the Earth, you can show that over the life of the Earth entropy has been decreasing. If you wish to understand entropy as it relates to life on the earth you have to use statistical mechanics instead of thermodynamics. A living creature, even one that has recently died has a great deal of order. Order is negative entropy. For a dead organism to loose all of its order, it would have to be completely incinerated to the point that the only thing left would be the molecules and compounds one would expect to find on the moon or in interstellar space. There is a great deal of order on the surface of the earth due entirely to the presence of life.

Starboy

seanie

Isn't it all three?