![]() ![]() ![]() Surely not every conserved ratio corresponds to a real, physical quantity. Clausius decided that the conserved ratio must correspond to a real, physical quantity, and he named it "entropy". The ratio was heat exchanged to absolute temperature. He had noticed that a certain ratio was constant in reversible, or ideal, heat cycles. The first opportunity for confusion arises when we introduce the term entropy into the mix. That would have been before the first law, conservation of energy, was discovered! In any case, modern scientists completely agree about the above principles. Feynman, however, says the French physicist Sadi Carnot discovered the second law 25 years earlier (3). The second law was formulated after nineteenth century engineers noticed that heat cannot pass from a colder body to a warmer body by itself.Īccording to philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, the second law was first put into words by two scientists, Rudolph Clausius and William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), using different examples, in 1850-51 (2). This means that a perpetual motion machine is impossible. The second law is a straightforward law of physics with the consequence that, in a closed system, you can't finish any real physical process with as much useful energy as you had to start with - some is always wasted. So why do people say that life violates the second law of thermodynamics? What is the second law of thermodynamics? This is not the case we know of nothing in the universe that violates that law. Sometimes people say that life violates the second law of thermodynamics. With that perspective on history, we should all take heart: While we’ll never win the war on entropy, we can create windows of wonder and order-if we only try.The use of thermodynamics in biology has a long history rich in confusion. Terrible times always eventually yielded to better ones, and ultimately led to the advancement of civilization-although at the moment it was probably hard to see exactly how. Over the many millennia of human history, humans overcame chaos and hopelessness. At that time, with the entire world seemingly on fire, one couldn’t imagine a worse chance of staving off entropy-you could practically smell it in the air-yet they did. But stop for a second and imagine what the world looked like to those living through other challenging times, such as the Second World War. Certainly, COVID and the current political climate can make us see things that way. I think it’s probably a truism that, at times, we view our own lives through the lenses of adversity and hopelessness. Often, it can be hard to see a way forward to a lighter, happier, more ordered life. But what should we do with the rock, then? Stop pushing it? Just give up? Clearly not, although at times in our lives, and at various times in human history, it’s tough to acknowledge that. If we stopped pushing, as physics peskily reminds us, the universe would, on its own, move toward darkness and disorder-a very depressing realization. (It also feels good.)Īt the same time, we have to acknowledge that we’re pushing that rock up the hill time after time with no end in sight, and our achievement is only temporary. It’s how we make our mark on the world: Since chaos and disorder are the natural state of things, creating organization is a sign that we were here. Beyond any OCD issues, I think bringing order to chaos is a basic drive of human beings. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” as they say. I suppose it’s a variation of being obsessive/compulsive, which a lot of ophthalmologists are. Personally, I’m one of those many people that can’t stand a mess, disorder or unfinished business. We constantly work to make our lives and the environment around us more orderly. It’s an endless process that really revolves around creating order out of chaos, evoking a more perfect state from a less perfect one, decreasing entropy.īut why do we feel the need to bring order to things? But, despite these feelings, most of us still set an alarm, get dressed and go do what we’ve always done: See patients, restore sight, take care of our families and our friends. On those days, we start to wonder if we’re the only ones who care. And then there are days when we feel if not crushed, at least defeated. Of course, there are days when we feel we’ve changed the world-or at least someone’s small corner of it. This concept of the universe trending toward chaos comes to mind when bad things happen, when order breaks down. This is the natural way of the universe-unless we push back. Entropy is a loss of useful energy and, unfortunately, it keeps increasing. And a key process describing these systems is entropy, the degree of a system’s randomness or disorder. ![]() Physics tells us that, from a very fundamental point of view, all properties and processes in this universe trend toward disorder, less energy, chaos. ![]()
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