This Just In: FT Sucker Punches Entropy

I read that title as "Financial Times sucker punches Entropy", and wondered why an economics paper is worried about something in Chemistry...

*shame*

The Fluctuation Theorem doesn't sucker-punch entropy. It's larger than the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but it doesn't contradict it. It still says entropy increases with time because, at the beginning of time, entropy was very low. So the Doomguard has nothing to worry about from that.

Unfortunately for them, the Doctor managed to postpone the heat death of the universe for 100 trillion years by venting the excess entropy into other universes using Charged Vacuum Emboitments. The bastard.

Locally, of course, it happens all the time -- entropy decreases are the point of metabolic energy storage. Entropy simply increases more elsewhere, in order to drive a concentration of useful energy into a small region. (The claim that this can't happen is both a complete misunderstanding of the underlying physics, and the usual line of argument advanced by creationists claiming that "Thermodynamics disproves evolution.")

On the Universal scale, a single sudden massive entropy decrease is one of the more plausible theories of the Big Bang. Otherwise, no, on the macroscopic scale it's so improbable as to safely be said to be impossible.

How's that related to entropy decreasing, though...? Water becoming solid in response to a lack of heat energy sounds entropy-friendly to me.

Entropy is related to the number of possible system configurations with the same energy level. When water freezes, or to take another example, when gas is deposited on a mineral surface and crystallizes, the number of possible atomic configurations for the chemical are very small, because the positions and possible energy states of atoms in a crystal are extremely confined.

The only way a crystal can form, whether ice or mineral, is for the entropy of an energy source system to increase considerably more. On Earth, these processes are driven by the Sun consuming its hydrogen fuel, by the Earth slowly cooling and settling, and other energy sources. The same goes for living beings growing, accumulating mass they organize into structures, and storing energy; they're able to do so because the Sun is throwing off a lot of free energy by undergoing its own really, really entropic spontaneous reactions.

I think the reasoning is that the PEP is just a force for creating living things, much like the elemental planes are motive forces for other material stuff. In that sense PEP is just a metaphysical way of giving a materialistic explanation for life. Life is just a seperate material from, say, fire or water, requiring a distinct inner plane to explain it. The PEP doesn't really give an origin story or a creation myth, since it just kinda is, like any other inner plane. The Gods are the ones using those forces to actually direct things. One could certainly worship the PEP, but theologically speaking, its not much different from worshipping the plane of Fire. It remains a force without purpose or direction, unless directed in that way by some higher motive force, such as a Power.

No, that's not correct. Freezing any object decreases its entropy.

Both, actually.

1.) The entropy of an object changes when it absorbs heat from, or gives up heat to, its surroundings. If H is the heat transferred, and T is the temperature at which the transfer happened, the change in entropy of the object is H/T.

2.) The entropy of an object measures the number of micro-states w available to it at a given energy level; if x is the number of states available at a given reference energy level, the change in entropy of the object between the two states is k ln (w/x), where k is a certain physical constant. A liquid has many states its freely-moving atoms can be in, without changing the system's overall energy; a solid is rigid, and has very few. Transitioning from a solid to a liquid increases entropy.

In the case of melting object, the phase shift will occur naturally when the total entropy of the object and its heat source together would increase: heat will move away from the heat source (a loss of heat, a negative entropy change) into the object, breaking chemical bonds (an increase in entropy). When the sum is positive, the reaction can occur.

Yet a third way to think of entropy is as a measure of the probability of a given thermodynamical state. The second law of thermodynamics then says that, all things being equal, the likelier stuff will happen. The Fluctuation Theorem says, every now and then, random oddities do happen, rarely.

Work can be done when energy can move between parts of a system. As the entropy of the system overall increases, there are fewer opportunities for transition and thus less useful work the system can do, because you're already in high-entropy states.

Bear in mind, of course, that this all would represent an astonishingly advanced understanding of thermodynamics for a medieval society. This concept was invented in the 1800s. The Doomguard's understanding of such things, unless there are some excellent alchemists available to the faction, would be more along the lines of Buddhist teachings regarding the impermanence of the world or Gnostic rejection of material things as transitory.