4 ms·
It's not "violating" that law if it's only temporary. "In the long run" is part of the definition of that law.
by infinity0 13y ago
It's not "violating" that law if it's only temporary. "In the long run" is part of the definition of that law.
- allthatglitters 13y agoOne might also say that it's a "temporary" perpetual motion machine...
- adlpz 13y agoAdditionally, the second "law" of thermodynamics doesn't even make sense at those scales. It pretty much just shows that, in a given (isolated) system, there are way more "unordered" possible states (degenerate) than "ordered" states, and due to basic statistics, in the long run the system will progress towards being in those more probable states. If the system is simple enough, the probability of jumping to a less-degenerate state is large enough, and eventually, will happen.
- tormeh 13y agoExactly. The probability that shards will meld into a glass pane and water will form a snowman is nonzero, but simply very low. There are no absolutes here.
- logicchains 13y agoIf the many worlds interpretation of waveform collapse is correct, it's possible that there's actually a universe somewhere in which the entire arctic is covered in such snowmen.
- evanb 13y agoThe many worlds interpretation of wavefunction NON-collapse, I think you mean :). And it is a guarantee that if it is not physically impossible for it to have happened, there is a branch of the universal wavefunction as you describe.
- lloeki 13y agoI can't find the reference to the giant marshmallow hypothesis, stating that it perfectly probable (although possibly scarcely) that there exists a giant marshmallow that formed somewhere in space out of sheer luck. Probably Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams.