3 ms·
Good to know! If a periodic model is a potentially viable way of looking at things, could it be squared with thermodynamics? Specifically, the constant increase
by mjfisher 16y ago
Good to know! If a periodic model is a potentially viable way of looking at things, could it be squared with thermodynamics? Specifically, the constant increase in total entropy.
- eru 16y agoThermodynamics just says that entropy can't decrease in a closed system. So entropy can stay constant, and in an open system everything can happen.
- flipbrad 16y agovery difficult for entropy to stay constant in a closed system. And surely universality (all-encompassing, there-is-nothing-else) means closed system? Or are we looking at open and closed in the wrong way; if the universe is periodic, could entropy decrease with order 'warping in' from a different point in time (future or past) if time happened to fold or loop over itself to feed into the back of it?
- eru 16y ago> And surely universality (all-encompassing, there-is-nothing-else) means closed system? Not necessarily. The question isn't really settled. It seems quite complicated when you get to those scales. E.g. just as an analogy, in general relativity even energy isn't really conserved. (See http://math.ucr.edu/home//baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_gr.html http://math.ucr.edu/home//baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_...) So I don't know whether we can say anything definite about entropy.