3 ms·

This seems like a reasonable analogy. What about it do you feel is wrong?

by pontus 6y ago

clemParis 6y ago
You can tidy your room and the mess (that they mistake for entropy) would be reduced. The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that in an isolated system the entropy is always increasing (or at best constant), so the room analogy does not work.
- amelius 6y ago
  Tidying it requires external energy, which is what is happening (unless the person stays in the room in which case the mess will become even bigger).
- testing312 6y ago
  Tidying your room would be adding energy to the system, to make it tidy. This is still in line woth thermodynamics where adding energy can decrease entropy
  - AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
    You have to add energy to make it messy as well
    - dasil003 6y ago
      "Tidy" is a subjective quality, not an objective physical one. It does take mental energy to tidy a room, and without that effort it will tend to get messy through use. As long as you don't confuse mental energy for physical energy and tidiness for entropy in the literal sense, then the analogy works surprisingly well.
lm28469 6y ago
The only reason your room gets messier and messier is because you are messy, there is no law and physics has nothing to do with it. It just makes you feel smarter because you can use "thermodynamic" in a sentence
- vlasev 6y ago
  Physics does have something to do with it. It takes less energy to leave a food plate on your night stand than to get up and bring it to the sink. It takes less energy to throw your clothes in a mess on a chair than to fold them and put them away. Then when you eventually clean everything up, you expend less energy than the sum of energies that it would have taken to keep it tidy. For example, you can make 1 trip with 4-5 plates and cups to put them away as opposed to 1 trip per item. So you turn an energy profit. Messiness is energy expenditure minimization. You might ask why clean up at all. For most people there comes a time when the mess starts being distracting and once they start having to look for items, they start to expend more energy per action. So it makes sense to clean everything up and start over.

This seems like a reasonable analogy. What about it do you feel is wrong?

by pontus 6y ago

This seems like a reasonable analogy. What about it do you feel is wrong?

You can tidy your room and the mess (that they mistake for entropy) would be reduced. The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that in an isolated system the entropy is always increasing (or at best constant), so the room analogy does not work.

amelius 6y ago
Tidying it requires external energy, which is what is happening (unless the person stays in the room in which case the mess will become even bigger).
testing312 6y ago
Tidying your room would be adding energy to the system, to make it tidy. This is still in line woth thermodynamics where adding energy can decrease entropy
- AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
  You have to add energy to make it messy as well
  - dasil003 6y ago
    "Tidy" is a subjective quality, not an objective physical one. It does take mental energy to tidy a room, and without that effort it will tend to get messy through use. As long as you don't confuse mental energy for physical energy and tidiness for entropy in the literal sense, then the analogy works surprisingly well.

lm28469 6y ago

The only reason your room gets messier and messier is because you are messy, there is no law and physics has nothing to do with it. It just makes you feel smarter because you can use "thermodynamic" in a sentence

vlasev 6y ago
Physics does have something to do with it. It takes less energy to leave a food plate on your night stand than to get up and bring it to the sink. It takes less energy to throw your clothes in a mess on a chair than to fold them and put them away. Then when you eventually clean everything up, you expend less energy than the sum of energies that it would have taken to keep it tidy. For example, you can make 1 trip with 4-5 plates and cups to put them away as opposed to 1 trip per item. So you turn an energy profit. Messiness is energy expenditure minimization. You might ask why clean up at all. For most people there comes a time when the mess starts being distracting and once they start having to look for items, they start to expend more energy per action. So it makes sense to clean everything up and start over.