I was just explainng to a friend that Adam and Eve wouldn't be able to
breathe without the 2nd Law since diffusion is required and diffusion is
based on entropy. He casually quipped back--well maybe they breathed
differently than we do today.
Sigh....
TG
>Jack quoted (from a person who ought to know better):
>
>> " (snip) (1) The book of Romans tells readers that the entire creation
>> is subject to the law of decay. Again, a scientist would see this
>> statement as an obvious reference to the second law of thermodynamics.
>> ...."
>
>George Andrews' zwei Pfennigs:
>
>> I think it important -- if not critical! -- to understand that the
>> second law drives systems to higher degrees of complexity locally. This
>> is the driving mechanism for evolution in all of its manifestations;
>> e.g. stellar formation, pulsed lasers, etc. To equate the 2'nd law with
>> decay alone, is therefore missleading.
>
>And utterly ridiculous!
>
>Another Pfennig: To all who would consider the Second Law of Thermodynamics
>to be a "law of decay" that follows from human sin, consider a world in
>which the Second Law were suspended.
>
>For instance, suppose that you and your beloved were, in a moment of
>affectionate communion, holding hands in this world without thermodynamic
>decay. Given this opportunity for heat to flow from one body to another, and
>given that heat could now spontaneously flow from a cooler body to a warmer
>body, it is entirely possible for your dearly beloved to freeze to death as
>you yourself are cooked to death.
>
>If that's a perfect world, I don't want to go there. Long live the infamous
>"law of decay."
>
>Howard Van Till
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 04 2001 - 15:36:28 EDT