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Arrows Of Time - Why do things tend to decay?
In the last post we talked about Time, specifically Arrows of Time and how they are different from each other.
This post will be all about one of the directions of time or one of the arrows of time, that is: Thermodynamic arrow of time. This is one of the Physics perspective of arrows of time. So let's get some basics out of the way:
Entropy: Entropy really helps us understand the Thermodynamic arrow of time. It is also often times really confusing to understand entropy.
Entropy of any system is the measure of amount of energy which is unavailable to do work.
Two words that are important: Unavailability of energy and System. Let's look at them closely;
Unavailability of energy: This just means unavailability of thermal energy or energy which can be converted into work. This fits in perfectly with our topic "decay". As we go further into this it is found that entropy of our universe increases (more on this later). Imagine ice which melts into water or air leaking out of tire are all examples of increasing entropy, i.e decreasing availability of energy for work.
Here's a video I found that might give you an insight:
System:In the above examples such as the tire or ice melting or coffee, even the universe are examples of systems.
Systems in simple terms are entities that we study and note changes in, changes like temperature, pressure etc. Entropy is also probabilistic in nature, it's not that systems can't return to their low entropy state,but the chances of that happening are very low and hence the energy spreads out(expands to a form where energy is less useful) which is why the entropy of a system(the universe) “tends” to always increase.
So,let’s come to a statement which would help us in understanding this Arrow of Time better:
The entropy of the Universe is increasing.
The scientists have observed that our universe is in fact expanding and the increase in the entropy of the universe is in correlation with this expansion. Hence, we can understand why things have a sense of direction with respect to progress and why we experience a flow of time. This phenomenon in effect violates the symmetry(T-Symmetry) nature of time. It is usually observed in typical everyday events(the icky term is a macroscopic phenomenon).
Everything around you is governed by the second law.To better understand this we could take a look at Doctor Strange’s universe. Here, Doctor Strange messes around with the temporal order of things, whereas we just saw that all things do have a temporal order for themselves and tend to have increasing entropy. Strange reverses time and hence also the entropy of the objects which violates the second law of thermodynamics.
Remember: It’s not the flow of time which signifies the increase in entropy rather its the increase in entropy which gives us a
certain sense of the flow of time.
Now, another natural question arises as to where would all this end, is the universe moving in a definite direction? The answer is yes, it’s called Heat Death.
[3]Heat Death of the universe is also known as Big Chill or Big Freeze would be the state where there would no longer be any “usable” energy left and as a result, no processes which causes a rise in entropy would take place. To put this in perspective, every process around us, including the processes taking place in our body. This fascinating and terrifying theory was first put forth by Lord Kelvin in 1852.
This is an interesting timeline that I found for heat death.
Keeping up with our theme of why things tend to decay, we have explored a bit about the Universe's fate, why entropy leads to decay of things over time because of energy which can no longer be used. There is one other implication of entropy and the thermodynamic arrow of time. This is aging[3]. Maybe a post in future explaining aging and tying it up with entropy. This makes sense because aging does usually mean higher entropy and lower energy. I'll post some resources below, but I won't confirm this just yet.
This concludes our post on Thermodynamic arrow of time and an explanation into why time "flows" for us in a particular "direction"
Next up we'll look at the psychological arrow time. Specifically, if you are locked up in a room, where you can't access the outside world and have no sense of day or night, how do you explain the flow of time. How does your body know time is passing by? How does the body make sense of when to sleep?
All this time you must be searching for the weapon, the one which makes your life - an experience. What if I tell you that it's You! Let’s start with a small activity: What happens when you Google the following names; Albert Einstein, you get - The man who redefined genius; Muhammad Ali, you get - The Greatest, Marie Curie, you get - A woman of Firsts; Bruce Lee, you get - The man, The myth; Steve Jobs, you get - The man who thought different; Mahatma Gandhi, you get - The man who became one with the universal being; Bill Gates, you get - The richest man on Earth; Elon Musk - The man who wants to colonize Mars; Gary Vaynerchuk - A dude that loves the hustle, people & the NYjets Now google yourself. What did you find? Nothing on mine :( Just the social media. Want to change this? Build a Personal Brand. At this point, some of you may have thought, ‘Wait! Why do I need a significant google search results on me?’ To simply put it, the internet is your new resume. For better unde
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