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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: in Order to Order the Order
Message-ID: <832@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-May-85 11:52:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.832
Posted: Wed May  8 11:52:26 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 9-May-85 02:58:29 EDT
References: <1034@uwmacc.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 40

> On the subject of thermodynamics, Yosi Hoshen writes:
> 
> > Try an experiment:  take some
> > water and freeze it in your refrigirator.  That water entropy
> > will decrease (ice is more ordered than liquid water).  However,
> > the enropy of its surrounding will increase!
> 
>Um, not quite right for what you want to demonstrate.  The problems arises from
> the multiple definitions of the word "order".  Most of us (myself included in
> SOR pamphlet #2) are quite sloppy with our terms in this instance.  

> "Attempts to relate the idea  of `order'  in  a  crystal with biological
> organization or specificity must be regarded as a play on words which cannot
> stand  careful  scrutiny.  Informational macromolecules  can code genetic
> messages and therefore can carry information."
> 
> A. Ray Miller

    All of these problems arise from trying to apply vague natural language
interpretations of the second law of thermodynamics to processes which have
little to do with thermodynamics.  Saying that the second law of thermodynamics
requires that the order in a system decreases, and that evolution would 
require an increase in order sounds somewhat logical.  However, it is exactly
similar to saying that Newton's law of gravity says that things fall, thus
explaining the fall of the Roman empire.
    Increasing entropy is NOT decreasing order.  The change in entropy for
a system is defined as:
         final state
    integral    |   (1/T)  dQ
         initial state                   where T is temperature and Q is heat.

    In other words, people, the second law of thermodynamics, as the name
implies, has to do with *thermodynamics*, and cannot be meaningfully applied
to any other field.
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
    "A plot to takeover CBS was pushed today by some narrow-minded, manip-
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being handled fairly by our more liberal and intelligent news staff!"