Re: Are there things that don't evolve?

    A major cause of confusion is that, as Allan explains in his excellent
paper, entropy isn't necessarily related to visible disorder, contrary to
the implications by some YECs. One definition of entropy relates it to the
number of ways a system's energy can be distributed among microstates. In
chemistry the most common way for entropy to increase is for temperature to
increase, because when there is more energy there are more ways to
distribute energy. When T increases, entropy increases without any visible
signs of "increasing disorder."
    My paper about "entropy and evolution" explains -- using examples from
astronomical evolution -- why the operation of attractive forces
(electrostatic, gravitational, nuclear) is a simple way to understand "why
things happen" and why, even in a closed system, disorder can appear to
decrease even when entropy increases.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/thermo.htm#top2

    14 months ago (1-4-05) Randy Isaac shared a broader definition:
>Of all the statements of the 2nd Law, my favorite is one I learned from
>George Uhlenbeck: "The second gradient of the free energy is positive"
>(which is much more elegant in equation form), meaning that the free
>energy is minimized in every physical process. The free energy includes
>not only the well-known terms "U-TS" but also terms for pressure/volume,
>strain energy, chemical potential, magnetic potential, gravitational
>potential, etc. The overly-used "closed system" simplification keeps all
>the extra terms constant so that the remaining variable, entropy S,
>must be maximized to keep the free energy at a minimum.

    Also, in standard accounts of the Second Law, it's the entropy of the
UNIVERSE that increases, not the entropy of a system. (This is where a
distinction between open and closed systems is useful.)

Craig
Received on Sat Mar 25 17:38:56 2006