Can entropy be reversed?

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Dunno.

Ask Multivax.

[Dragon Writer]

A one liner, from a MOD? I am shocked and appaled, garrat...Shocked and appaled, indeed. :P *thinks it should be theoreticall y possible, even if not neccesarily theoretically plausible* anything's possible, given enough time...whether or not there IS enough time is the main question.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Well, it's a two-liner, technically, but if I explained it, it would ruin the humor. :-)

I'm trying to decide whether "The Last Question" or "The Nine Billion Names of God" is better: 9B has better writing, I think, but TLQ sticks with you.

[EricG1793]

This isn't the first time I've seen Garrett make a one-liner as a mod.

Now, can entropy be REVERSED.... Interesting question.

Well, you can look at it this way. Your hard wood floor is finished, painted, etc. Entropy takes its affect on the floor; the finish rubs off, and there are "paths" all over the floor.

So, you decide to further increase the entropy - you sand off the remaining of the good finish. The floor is as bad as it gets now.

Then, you put brand new stain, paint, whatever, on to the floor, and it's as good as new.

So, in this particular case, I find that it CAN be reversed.

[alla]

Eric, I don't think you understand the point of the question. It's amusing that Multivax comes up with that answer.

As for your example, what about reversing the energy that is used up in that situation? You must use energy to sand off the floor, and then more energy to reapply the stain. So even if you re-sand and re-apply the stain, you haven't replaced the energy that has been used, so entropy hasn't been reversed.

[EricG1793]

*Shrugs* I'm just answering the question of the topic; I didn't read the thing Garrett linked to.

Hmmmh.... When I think of entropy in my mind, I think of things degrading, getting "worn out", etc. So, wouldn't these things, as they have the effect of entropy put on them, RELEASE the energy that they once held and have it go in to other things around them?

Bringing "energy" in to the equation makes things more complicated.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Eric, the whole point of the post was to link to it, so not clicking through kind of defeats the purpose.

Given the emphasis on holding off entropy in the YW books, it seemed relevant.

And Kathy gets to !@#$% me out on netiquette issues: you, not so much. *grin, duck and run*

[Kathy Li]

Consider yourself !@#$%ed out.

Guys, remember that the one-liner thing is a simplification--the spirit of the rule is keep your signal-to-noise ratio high. Even DD has posted one-liners in her time. But you'll note that Garrett's and DD's one-liners have content and substance to them--they're meant for everybody who reads the board and are of interest therewith. They know how not to waste their posts (well, usually. This time, not so much, hence the !@#$%ing out).

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Well, it kind of tied in to Clarke's recent death. After re-reading "The Nine Billion Names of God" online, it reminded me of "The Last Question", so I went looking for it and found this page. I was highly amused, so I wanted to link to it, but if I had explained why, I would have been spoiling the joke.

*slinks off to the !@#$%ed-out corner*

[Dragon Writer]

....Well, that was an interesting response..*Grins*

I suppose given enough time, even Entropy could be reversed. (key word is suppose)

[Kathy Li]

Ok, time-out's over. You can come out from the corner, now, Garrett!

Yes, but everybody remember I'm the only one (well, ok, DD and Lee can, too) who gets to !@#$% out Garrett! It's one of the very few privileges and pleasures you enjoy when you become an admin.

When YOU become a mod, then you can netiquette nitpick. But until then, just try to make sure everybody's having fun and that this is a pleasant place. Really, do you want to be seen as someone who continually harps on the rules at everyone?

As for entropy reversal--(wistfully)--it would be nice, wouldn't it?

[Tuttle]

Even without understanding the reference completely that is amusing, though some description might have been nice *shrug*.

The reference to the big three with the death of Arthur C. Clarke does make sense though.

Originally posted by young reader:

I suppose given enough time, even Entropy could be reversed. (key word is suppose)

I'd be impressed if you could break thermodynamics. I'd really like to see a (true) perpetual motion machine.

This thread has really reminded me how little people realize what entropy is in our world. What entropy is is a measure of disorder or randomness. Because reversing a measurement does not make sense I'm assuming what 'reversing' would be is entropy decreasing.

This brings me to the second law of theromodynamics - which say that (in a closed system) entropy cannot be decreased. Similarly, entropy not only cannot be decreased, but cannot stay the same.

To put it in other terms:
You cannot win
You cannot break even
you cannot leave the game


Even with magic, there are still the laws of this world.

If anyone can break these and create a perpetual motion machine, please show us.

[EricG1793]

You're right, Alla, my example with the wood floor probably wasn't the best one. I agree. At the moment, I don't have the opportunity to make up another example, but I will as soon as I can.

[vashmata]

I also disagree with Eric. Not only will you lose energy, you won't regain the floor by using sandpaper, you'll destroy it even more.

I've actually come up with an interesting theory about everything. It also kind of says that instead of entropy being reversed, it just restarts from scratch (I came up with this while daydreaming in my Science class).
So here it is:
We've all heard bout the big bang, how massive amounts of energy were released, and they slowly reconverted into matter, and then the universe was formed (e=mc^2). Well, if we combine the theory that time is an endless loop (watch Bill and Ted's Excelent Adventure-it's a hard theory for me to explain: basically, if you have a time machine and you go back in time and see a message telling you what to do, be sure to go farther behind and put it there, or the loop will become unstable and you would have never gotten the message, changing everything), we can say that at the end of time, the whole universe (and everything else I guess) will be converted back into an atom, and then exact same thing will happen over and over again (of course, I only thought about it in this much detail when I got home).

So you see, it won't be reversed - rather, it will restart - according to my theory.

[Rhi]

If entropy is energy becoming disorganized (usually as heat), then its reversal would be the organization of energy. I really have no idea how one would go about doing that Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or transformed, so the organization would have to take place in the transfer or transformation. I still don't see how that could happen....yeah, I'm not going to even try to break the 2nd law of thermodynamics