Physics Report: Second Law Broken

[KrazyHorse]

Do you know what I just found? A Java applet that lets you play at being Maxwell's demon!

http://cougar.slvhs.slv.k12.ca.us/~pboomer/physicslectures/maxwell.html

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
the entropy increases over time... also without energy provided? or is that the whole point of it?

?

Entropy is a different concept than energy. The energy of a closed system must remain constant by definition.

[Lung]

Originally posted by faded glory
You sir give creationism a bad name

Physics has little or nothing to do with anything religous.

Oh, Faded Glory, you are wise to distance yourself from those who attack what is testable in defence of something which is not. The domain for religion is purely within the ambiguous realm of spirituality, not the realm of the physical universe.

I haven't seen you post drunk, lately, FG. This could explain your apparent logic of late

[Ecthy]

yes, but usually something has to happen to change entropy. but true, it's unrelated to energy.

now, what's the point of this thread, I still don't quite get it... all that talk about creationists etc, where's the connection to entropy?

and before you ask, yes I know what entropy is

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
the entropy increases over time... also without energy provided? or is that the whole point of it?

and now enlighten me about the news about that law. what does that mean, it has been broken?

Entropy can only be defined statistically. Look at a small enough system for a short enough period of time and its entropy can decrease over the alotted interval.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
yes, but usually something has to happen to change entropy. but true, it's unrelated to energy.

now, what's the point of this thread, I still don't quite get it... all that talk about creationists etc, where's the connection to entropy?

and before you ask, yes I know what entropy is

Really? What is it?

[Ecthy]

I've never put it in English before though.

It's the state of chaos, so to speak. Does that suffice?

[Ecthy]

Maybe a bit more: I know that substances tend to increase in entropy, so that in chemical reactions the outcome of gases is more likely than that of liquids or solids, so that under certain circumstances (entropy difference of the reaciton in combination with temperature, energy/enthalpy difference of the reaciotn), a reaction is more or less likely to happen with the relevant changed in solid/liquid/gaseous state (gibbs thing)

that's just one, pretty trivial application

[Ecthy]

now stop testing me about this nonsense, better tell me how that is related to creationism

...until tomorrow that is

[KrazyHorse]

You shouldn't believe everything you read. "Order" and "chaos" are fuzzy terms. Better to restrict yourself to mathematical definitions...

[Lung]

Entropy is a natural tendency towards disorder. To reverse the effect of entropy, external energy is required. Therefore, in a closed system, making something more orderly requires other things to become more disordered, only more so.

Evolution relates to this as creationists argue that evolution defies entropy, conveniently ignoring the fact that the energy from the sun enables the earth to become more ordered. As Earth has an external source, it doesn't violate this law.

The experiments are very interesting, but only time will tell if it has in fact broken the law.

[KrazyHorse]

The law isn't broken if the system they're looking at is too small to apply stat mech to.

[Lung]

I've only now just read the article, and it's very interesting. It reminded me of something i read about, that at the quantum level, particles can be considered to be "non-local". Enourmous masses of particles, like, say, humans, collectively are local. One cannot be in two places at once! At the quantum level, however, particles effectively can be.

Is there a connection here? There certainly seems to be a different set of rules at the micro level than at the macro level.

[Ecthy]

Lung basically said the same as I did. You just don't want to admit there's something I know, KH.

[Lung]

Wait......i'm agreeing with you? How?