Second Law of Thermodynamics

Hi pianoprincess.
Before you hit the "submit message" button after composing your message, it's a good policy to hit the "preview" button/box at the lower left of your message page. This allows you the opportunity to check your spelling and to see if your smilies faces you want to post are typed in right.2. If you don't understand what Asgara or others have advised, I suggest you take Asgara up on her invite to the chat room. She and others were a great help to me over in the chat room when I recently became a moderator. They are very patient in there and will walk you through things to help you in posting, etc. To get in there just hit "chat" up at the top of your screen near the right side and whoever is there will help you after you get in. You can see who's in there up on the upper left of your screen.This message has been edited by AdminBuzsaw, 01-27-2006 09:44 PM

Pianoprincess, OK, I'll have a crack at getting this back on topic...Firstly, as Crashfrog correctly states, evolution doesn't say anything about the universe evolving upwards, nor does the second law of thermodynamics (hereafter known as 2LOT) say it is backsliding. So your opening post is based upon false premises to begin with.The second law of thermodynamics states that in a closed system, entropy will increase to a maximal level. A closed system is one in which energy can neither leave nor enter. A bit like a thermos flask that stays hot forever (or cold, for that matter). Entropy is the unavailability of energy in that system for work use. For example, say we have some sugar, oxygen & a match in our magic thermos flask. The potential energy available for work is at a relative high, whilst entropy is correspondingly low. Assume now that the match is struck & the sugar begins to burn. This results in the sugar breaking down into carbon dioxide & water. Note that the system has exactly the same energy as before (a closed system cannot receive or let it go), it is now distributed amongst the molecules differently in a much more stable way. The carbon dioxide & water aren't going to react with each other (ie. do work), so we can see that despite the energy in our system being absolutely the same, the energy available for work has decreased. And therefore the unavailability of that energy has increased, or put another way, the entropy of the system has increased.There is now no real way that we can make sugar again out of the carbon dioxide & water. This is what creationists mean by complexity can only decrease. If we had an open system & applied energy in the correct way, we could make sugar out of water, oxygen, & carbon dioxide.The problem with the creationist interpretation of the 2LOT is that they dishonestly ignore the fact that it was formulated to apply to a closed system. The earth, however, is demonstrably an open system where energy is contantly being gained & lost. In this system, sugar is indeed "remade", plants do it all the time when they photosynthesise. According to creationists who say "complexity can only decrease", photosynthesis is an abberation. If complexity increases were not allowed by the 2LOT in an open system, then we shouldn't be able to make anything more complex than the component parts, but we can, 2LOT doesn't forbid it. An embryo shouldn't be able to increase in complexity from a single cell to a fully adult organism with specialised cells, tissues, organs, & organ systems, but it does & they do. And consequently there is no reason why random mutation & natural selection cannot maintain & "improve". We demonstrate that this happens in the laboratory, again it isn't forbidden in an open system. Nor are any of the above forbidden in a closed system that hasn't yet reached maximum entropy, because there is still energy available for work.The creationist misinformation is based upon, not understanding what the 2LOT is in the first place, inappropriate conflation of terms like entropy & complexity (2LOT says absolutely NOTHING about complexity), evolving upwards, backsliding, in order to come to a totally vacuous conclusion. It sounds technical & scientific, & the creationist masters of misinformation know that the vast majority of their target audience will be completely unable to critique their claims, but it's just plain wrong.The creationist 2LOT fallacy has been around for decades & is still being trotted out. Why? Bad science it may be, but creationists aren't about science, they are about propaganda, getting "bums on seats", & scientific mumbo-jumbo combined with the easily swayed scientifically illiterate means they are onto a winner.Hope that helps.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

and what mark24 has said is why I opened with "crap" and a warning about being careful of your sources.If anyone feed me such junk when they had every chance over decades to correct it I would be inclinded to reconsider everything they had to say. There is a chance that at least some of the other things they are saying is also crap.We have now come back to your opening post PianoPrincess. Would you like to comment on what you have learned?

If there IS infinite divisibility then the notion of "closed system" precludes any material influence from such an infinite reality. Thus if a countably infinite exterior is part of the difference between intra and inter demic SELECTION then what is not selected in such a closure COULD still exist but not in thermodynamics as it is currently manifested by physicists. This is the only case I can see where creation ex nihilio might exist but I do not resort to this notion when contributing positively as there are plenty of 'systems' that can be investigated taking historical precedent back to Boltzmann's bald claim that the existence of an atom and infinite divisibility are not contrary to one another.Such a system if defined might indeed THEN be considered 'closed' such that the 1st law would then apply, but I doubt I have consistently been able to extract any other evcer to this side of my para(graph) structure(s).This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 01-28-2006 02:14 PM

Hi Brad. I think I understand "infinite divisibility," but could you explain what you mean by "countably infinite?" Are you applying them as meaning one and the same? Thanks.

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

Hi Mark. I believe every star, galexy, planet and other heavenly bodies are open systems. Is that correct? Isn't it a general observation that the workable energy in most, if not all of these is on the decline? Isn't it also being observed that workable energies of earth and sun are also on the decline for the long term?

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

Yupe Buz that is correct. We have only so much time left. It may all wind down in only 30 or 40 billion more years.

Hi Buz, Yup. Stars, not necessarily planets. Yup. The only possible true closed system is the universe in its entirety, & entropy on average is increasing. At some point the last star will go out. But don't worry, this isn't likely to affect the stock markrt any time soon .Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

AHAH!! So everything observed in the universe, with the exception of aspects of planet earth appears to be gaining entropy. Interesting, it is, that it happens to be complex things applicable to this tiny speck in the whole wide universe where enough work seems to be applied to effect a negative entropy. We IDists think we understand the reason this is,( ) but of course, the science journals will have none of that!

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Gravity is God's glue that holds his universe together.

He was not exactly right because the earth is cooling off. I think what he meant was that planets don't have a massive fusion reactor in the middle of them.You really did grab ahold of some straws on this one.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Buzz, Not at all. I said the universe as a whole was gaining entropy. Anything that receives energy loses entropy (potentially), the general trend is towards greater entropy, however. A star shits out energy. Anything that gets in the way absorbs it. Why is this such a revelation to you? Apparently we need IDists to sound surprised at such a trivial concept?MarkThis message has been edited by mark24, 01-29-2006 02:54 PM

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

There's nothing special about earth. Mark only meant that planets receive energy from the suns they orbit. They also reradiate energy out into space. As Jazzns implied, they probably radiate some of their own energy off into space, too, which means they're gradually losing net energy and cooling.An entropy budget for an entire planet isn't realistic (entropy is more than just a matter of gaining and losing energy), but it isn't what you want for this issue. What we're really interested in is the biosphere where life lives, not the whole planet. Life absorbs energy from the sun and locks this energy into chemical bonds through photosynthesis for use in growing and reproducing. Growing plants are definitely experiencing decreasing entropy.We can't imagine what life might be like on other planets, but if it exists then it does so through the same process of absorbing energy from a nearby star to fuel life's processes.Is the earth experiencing a net gain or loss of entropy in the biosphere? Who knows? That's an incredibly complex question. Probably it's not too far from equilibrium, though our burning of fossil fuels might have some influence.The important point is that life is just chemistry. Extremely complicated organic chemistry, but still just chemistry. Reproductive errors are the source of much variation, and they, too, are just chemistry. And living organisms and plants and animals living their lives and succeeding to reproduce or not is just more chemistry. Evolution is just chemistry, and chemistry does not violate 2LOT.--Percy

Thanks.No,I did not intend them as the same thing. There do exist countably infinte enumerations in mathematics which posses a lesser cardinality than sets which might be suspect. I had intended infinite divisibility to be a logical operation of division of cases but is subject to paradoxes. Cantor's solution was to seperate potential infinity from actual infinity from absolute infinity. I had meant in the post that inifinite division as addressed by Boltzmann in the late 1800s to apply to absolute infinity which might only survive in some of our more theological posts so far. It might be that attractions plus repulsions of atoms do not contradict infinites much larger than potential ones but that countably infinte sets do exist is not much in question purely. How to apply them is all that I was not counterindicating.see also
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/53352.htmlThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 01-29-2006 05:14 PM

One must restate again:1) The SLOT applies to every physical, chemical and mass/energy conversion process, reaction or excahnge in teh universe without exception. There are no local negentropy events anywhere which are not locally financed or driven by companion directly coupled energy/heat/work flows which create entropy increases in their operation far exceeding the negentropy they finance. Thats why no one can demonstrate a perpetual motion machine.2) There are no mysterious, metaphysical, non-local action at a distance entropy messaging phenomomena to support experimentally or theoretically the idea that local negentropy in biological evolution and operation is financed by large entropy producing evvents "somewhere else in the universe".. even the sun.3) There are no negentropy events in the universe which make use of unrectified, unconverted raw radiant or in general electromagnetic energy absent a process to convert the energy into a usuable form. It is this transmission, conversion and rectification process which in obedience to SLOT results in huge entropy production to finance the local negentropy effects, LOCALLY.4) In the beginning there were no metabolic, photosynthetic or other processes available to convert raw solar energy into a form suitable for overcoming the free energy deficit associated with the most simplistic formation of amino acids from monomers, polymers from monomeres, proteins,enzymes, DNA etc. The spontaneous formation of the chemical processes of photosynthesis and matabolism is so phantasmagorically impossible ... even evos don't believe that yet that is required to make evolution happen.5) That which never gets started can hardly be assumed to continue.6) If an open system and the suns or stars operation were sufficient the entire world would be free of SLOT and we would abound with perpetual motion machines since nearly all processes are open to the suns energy.
MY FRIG.. An analogy for the evo crowd.My icebox will keep my beer cold because it is plugged into a wall
socket delivering electrical energy. It is by definition an open
system since the power crosses an arbitrary boundary (you do
understand closed open and isolated and flowthrough are all arbitrary
constructs for problem solving don't you)called the icebox exterior
shell or packaging.Thus by supplying rectified, converted energy in a useable form to
the ice box system I can push heat from a cool reservoir to a warm
one. If this were to occur without any energy being supplied across
the boundary it would be a clear violation of the second law and
entropy would decrease on a net basis. THUS IT HAS NOT AND NEVER WILL
OCCUR.But the energy delivered comes at a very high entropy price namely
coal burning, water heating, trubines turning, power transmission and
all very inefficiently with large entropy increases.Thus the net entropy change of any real process chemical, physical or
biologic will always in consideration of the system and its
surroundings be very positive.Now I take my icebox unplug it from the socket , sit it out in my
yard in the hot hot summer sun. Does my beer get cooler or hotter?
The system is still an OPEN one, the suns energy is abundantly
available, the device is the same as before yet my beer gets hot, the
box gets hot and I get hot.Whats wrong... this senario satisifes every evolutionary constraint
and assumption... a heat source available to an open system with
everything it needs to operate in a negentropy fashion... yet it
fails miserably and completely.I rush to the store and buy a solar panel driven electricity system.
I set up a large array and plug my icebox into the generator output.
Behold my beer begins to cool down again. I have indeed harnessed the
suns energy to do negentropic work at the expense of overall entropy
increases theough the rectification process. The entropy balance is
maintained without regard for the thermonuclear process in the sun
period. The entropy increases due to inefficiencies, friction work,
etc. electrical losses, etc. are absolutely sufficient to insure a
net entropy increase.COnclusios of a logical mind:1) Without an intellligence based, designed energy transducing
process converting random solar energy into a usuable electrical form
no process can produce a negentropic effect.2) With such a process can product negentropy effects but those
effects will always be less in amount than the entropy produced by
the transducing and energy delivery process. It has nothing to do
with the etropy produced by the the sun.3) The suns and any stars processes are very large entropy producers
which is why thermonuclear processes are irreversible, highly
inefficient and push the universe toward an inevitable equiblibrium
heat death followed by absolute zero.QED Delete redundant portion. --AdminThis message has been edited by Admin, 02-02-2006 01:59 PM

Winter occurs.The energy of the sun creates areas on the Earth that are far colder than would be reasonably expected given the caloric input of the sun to the Earth. Moreover, in these areas, water freezes and becomes crystalline - the formation of ordered arrangements of matter by natural processes alone, unguided by any intelligence.Thus, your conception of thermodynamics is proven wrong. Moreover, the idea that the evolution of organisms by reproduction with modification is a thermodynamic process is laughable.