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>> a perfectly uniformly distributed of zero temperature mass ... is the perfect order At max entropy, things would not be uniformly distributed: equal distanc

>> a perfectly uniformly distributed of zero temperature mass ... is the perfect order At max entropy, things would not be uniformly distributed: equal distance between each atom. Rather they would be randomly distributed. There'd be some clumping but without much pattern. If such a system were of near infinte size, the number of variations of its alignments would far exceed the much smaller near-infinity of slightly or somewhat more ordered possible systems in the same universe. Especially in the case of your uniformly ordered one, which is almost unique in that universe.

crimsonalucard 8y ago
This is entirely incorrect. Our solar system started out as a gas cloud of randomly distributed atoms which then proceeded to become atoms organized into spheres called planets. This happened spontaneously and is not the result of energy entering or exiting the system. Almost all atoms started out in a state of random distribution before transforming themselves into almost perfect spheres orbiting in an almost perfectly circular orbit around a giant glowing sphere called a star. These stars then organize themselves into beautiful ordered spirals called galaxies. Entropy always increases and most people think high entropy is a state of random distribution, but the organization of atoms in the universe is definitely not heading in that direction. Thanks to gravity the universe will not become a place where atoms are perfectly randomly distributed. This does not make sense from an intuitive perspective and observational as well. Strange right? Entropy has not reversed. What's going on most people don't have an intuitive grasp of what the true definition of entropy is. Allow me to elucidate. The "disorder" that entropy refers to can actually take on many forms. In the case of our solar system it is perfect spheres that orbit another glowing perfect sphere. In the case of food coloring dispersing in a glass it is atoms randomly distributed. Entropy simply put should not be called a law it is really a consequence of probability. If the organization of atoms is in a high probability state than it has high entropy if it is in a low probability state than it has low entropy. Put it this way: atoms and gravity by probability are more likely clump into perfect spheres rather than stay in a perfectly randomly distributed gaseous state. Spherical planets are then according to this definition entropy, at a higher state of entropy than a gas dust cloud. Seem crazy right? It seems like entropy is reversing... randomly distributed atoms organizing themselves into clumps of perfect spheres... The reality is nothing crazy is going on. Intuitively we know gas dust clouds organize them selves into spherical planets and solar systems. It's your definition of entropy that is off. Are intuitive notions of disorder and chaos are clashing with what entropy defines as 'disorder' and 'chaos'
- rocqua 8y ago
  Wait, what happens if we look into the collapsing of the galaxy from an informational-theoretic view of entropy? As far as I know, thermodynamic and informational-theoretic entropy are the same except for the Boltzmann constant. It certainly seems to me that the informational entropy of the galaxy is lower than the original gas cloud. That is, if I wanted to describe the state of a single atom in the gas cloud (lets presume the number of atoms is constant) using a perfectly tuned compression algorithm, I'd need more bits to do it than if I wanted to do the same for an atom in the current galaxy (again using a compression algorithm perfectly tuned to that situation). Perhaps, because the gas cloud was cold, but the galaxy is 'hot' we actually need more bits because the individual particles can go faster, and thus have a larger range of possible speeds? Is this indeed enough to compensate for the much easier to describe location? Do I need to take more than just location and speed into account?
  - crimsonalucard 8y ago
    I'm less familiar with the information perspective of this topic. Why would you need more bits to describe a single atom in a galaxy vs a single atom in a gas cloud? If a set amount of bits are required to describe an atom then that amount will not change whether or not the atom is in a galaxy or a gas cloud.
    - rocqua 8y ago
      If we have a lot of similar locations, we can use compression to reduce the amount of bits required. A basic example of this compression would be to take the current location and represent it with two parts. The first gives the location accurate to the nearest light-second, and the second gives the location within that cubic light-second. Now, we can do huffman-coding [1] on the first part. In a gas cloud, the atoms are distributed over all possible cubes of light seconds. In a planetary system, they are concentrated in a much smaller set of planetary light seconds. This would make the huffman-coding a lot more efficient. There are almost certainly smarter compression methods than what I just described, but the above serves as an illustration. The information-theoretic entropy of a distribution can be seen as a lower bound on the average amount of bits needed when applying compression to the distribution. I believe (am not sure) that this is a tight lower bound (i.e. there exists a compression method that gets as close to the lower limit as you want)

crimsonalucard 8y ago

This is entirely incorrect. Our solar system started out as a gas cloud of randomly distributed atoms which then proceeded to become atoms organized into spheres called planets. This happened spontaneously and is not the result of energy entering or exiting the system. Almost all atoms started out in a state of random distribution before transforming themselves into almost perfect spheres orbiting in an almost perfectly circular orbit around a giant glowing sphere called a star. These stars then organize themselves into beautiful ordered spirals called galaxies. Entropy always increases and most people think high entropy is a state of random distribution, but the organization of atoms in the universe is definitely not heading in that direction. Thanks to gravity the universe will not become a place where atoms are perfectly randomly distributed. This does not make sense from an intuitive perspective and observational as well. Strange right? Entropy has not reversed. What's going on most people don't have an intuitive grasp of what the true definition of entropy is. Allow me to elucidate. The "disorder" that entropy refers to can actually take on many forms. In the case of our solar system it is perfect spheres that orbit another glowing perfect sphere. In the case of food coloring dispersing in a glass it is atoms randomly distributed. Entropy simply put should not be called a law it is really a consequence of probability. If the organization of atoms is in a high probability state than it has high entropy if it is in a low probability state than it has low entropy. Put it this way: atoms and gravity by probability are more likely clump into perfect spheres rather than stay in a perfectly randomly distributed gaseous state. Spherical planets are then according to this definition entropy, at a higher state of entropy than a gas dust cloud. Seem crazy right? It seems like entropy is reversing... randomly distributed atoms organizing themselves into clumps of perfect spheres... The reality is nothing crazy is going on. Intuitively we know gas dust clouds organize them selves into spherical planets and solar systems. It's your definition of entropy that is off. Are intuitive notions of disorder and chaos are clashing with what entropy defines as 'disorder' and 'chaos'

rocqua 8y ago
Wait, what happens if we look into the collapsing of the galaxy from an informational-theoretic view of entropy? As far as I know, thermodynamic and informational-theoretic entropy are the same except for the Boltzmann constant. It certainly seems to me that the informational entropy of the galaxy is lower than the original gas cloud. That is, if I wanted to describe the state of a single atom in the gas cloud (lets presume the number of atoms is constant) using a perfectly tuned compression algorithm, I'd need more bits to do it than if I wanted to do the same for an atom in the current galaxy (again using a compression algorithm perfectly tuned to that situation). Perhaps, because the gas cloud was cold, but the galaxy is 'hot' we actually need more bits because the individual particles can go faster, and thus have a larger range of possible speeds? Is this indeed enough to compensate for the much easier to describe location? Do I need to take more than just location and speed into account?
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  I'm less familiar with the information perspective of this topic. Why would you need more bits to describe a single atom in a galaxy vs a single atom in a gas cloud? If a set amount of bits are required to describe an atom then that amount will not change whether or not the atom is in a galaxy or a gas cloud.
  - rocqua 8y ago
    If we have a lot of similar locations, we can use compression to reduce the amount of bits required. A basic example of this compression would be to take the current location and represent it with two parts. The first gives the location accurate to the nearest light-second, and the second gives the location within that cubic light-second. Now, we can do huffman-coding [1] on the first part. In a gas cloud, the atoms are distributed over all possible cubes of light seconds. In a planetary system, they are concentrated in a much smaller set of planetary light seconds. This would make the huffman-coding a lot more efficient. There are almost certainly smarter compression methods than what I just described, but the above serves as an illustration. The information-theoretic entropy of a distribution can be seen as a lower bound on the average amount of bits needed when applying compression to the distribution. I believe (am not sure) that this is a tight lower bound (i.e. there exists a compression method that gets as close to the lower limit as you want)