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When applied broadly, an understanding of Entropy and The Second Law of Thermodynamics helps explain the passa ...
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- View everything as organised energy, that is decaying and dispersing.
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From a scientific point of view, there are some supposed challenges to The Second Law from quantum physics — but to be honest, we still don’t understand those challenges and the associated ongoing debate, which you can explore more in this 2017 Scientific American article.
In truth, we find a more interesting exploration of limitations via how you might use these models as a guide in your broader work and life. From that perspective, you might consider how the application of this model assumes that things decay, rather than change. That is, when applied to businesses, products, or relationships, rather than assuming decay, it might be more useful to assume change — that those elements will continue to evolve and shift which might or might not result in greater disorder. Though the pull towards disorder is still a compelling explanation for countless situations.
The steam engine.
It’s no coincidence that The Laws of Thermodynamics arose during the Industrial Revolution and the birth of the steam engine. The steam engine, at a basic level, has three components — a hot energy source (steam); a device that converts that heat energy into movement (pistons); and a vent that extracts energy that hasn’t been used as heat (a cold sink).
The need for the cold sink demonstrated that when heat was converted to movement, some of the heat was transferred into the system’s surroundings. This was an indicator that for energy to move from a high-temperature body to a low body one that work, or additional energy, was required.
The ice swan.
Imagine an ice sculpture of a swan sitting in an ocean. The sculpture might have incredible detail and artistry, meanwhile, the water around it has undefinable depths. Which do you think has more Entropy?
If you answered with the ocean, you’d be right. The ice sculpture is an ordered and defined object in comparison to the dispersed, random, and dare we say ‘disordered’ state of the water molecules in the ocean. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that, without intervention, there is a greater probability that water molecules will organise themselves in the form of an ocean than that of an ice sculpted swan as a result.
Your bedroom.
A common analogy to explain Entropy is that of your messy bedroom. There are more ways your bedroom can be messy, than ways it could be clean and ordered. In that sense, your messy bedroom has high Entropy, and the Second Law would imply that it will tend towards that state if left unchecked.
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As described in the In Practice section, the field of Thermodynamics was born from the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the steam engine. As with all such ideas, there were many contributors to the field, but French physicist Sadi Carnot was certainly seen as one of the leading thinkers in the space. His discussion of ‘thermodynamic efficiency’ was far ahead of its time.
Rudolf Clausius, working independently in the early 1850s, posited similar ideas after examining how heat from a heated body would flow to one of a lower temperature. He laid the groundwork for the Second Law by explaining: “heat does not pass from a body at low temperature to one at high temperature without an accompanying change elsewhere.”
The origins of these models are generally attributed to Clausius, though it could be rightly argued that Carnot had just as much, if not more, right to claim the mantle.
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