Thermodynamics…. A new solution to the age old problem of chaos?

In my recent interactions with biochemical terms, I came across a very fundamental thermodynamic law, that the total entropy of the world is always increasing. So the adventure began to understand this word entropy, what is this concept and how it came into existence. In short, entropy is ‘chaos’, this concept indicates that reaction is favored if it increases the chaos or disorder in the world. Interestingly can this be applied to any human action rather than limiting this wonderful concept to some body reactions?

Lets take a look at few examples, say digital organizer. First take, great invention helps us organize ourselves better well if we are getting more organized then there is an apparent decrease in entropy of our lives. Well here is the catch, the law states that the chaos of world has to increase. So on the flip side of the digital organizer, even though we (as a system) are getting organized, by being more organized are doing lot more activities, like instead of missing a meeting we prepare ourselves, or spend time doing something else like reading a paper. Now lets say everybody has an organizer we need stuff to read and get prepared, so we infact do more work inorder to me more productive in the less time we have. We do more work and inorder have more things to think about. Well point proven digital organizer is adding to the chaos of the world – hence a very wanted device.

Lets take a look at transportation system. Well first take again, great way to restore orderliness by reducing the time to go between places, makes us more organized by being on schedule. Well thermodynamic answer, it takes us to more places, makes more people interact, more thoughts fly, more time to do activities, more planning required on how to spend the saved time. Thus the entropy increases, hence transportation system is favored thermodyanamically.

Lets take a look at iPod, amazing makes us relax, listen to our favorite music on the go. Thermodynamic explanation? Well the more you listen to music, the more the backend support you need to make it meet your demands, increase the storage capacity, improve the ear phones, make it look more sleek (well almost invisible in some cases), come up with video option…..etc. Moral of the story the few thousand customers, a few thousand others think and work at greater length. For the few that own, spend more hours on researching about the viable options that would make their iPod an all in one device (thank god there is iPhone now).

In grander scheme of things, philanthropic works are also thermodynamically favored since they get lot of people, efforts and thoughts together. On the other hand, angry protests and blasts that tremendously reduce population or inhabitant population are not thermodynamically favored since it reduces the number of people that can contribute to the chaos. Now in a metaphysical concept, if everything is to be favored by thermodyamics, then what about death or people going to a vegetative state? Those are very hard to comprehend, or may be the summation of the chaos contributed by the people that would be attending to those dead or vegetative is greater than the persons contribution in life time? So if you are very active and constantly contributing to the chaos then shouldn’t we be living forever? May be every system has its limit on to how much chaos that can be contributed before the system is out of energy? Oh well, this is out of my thought process, so suggestions and discussions are open…..

Take home message - may be for all the items common in each household, it is so because of the thermodyanamic law. (Note: Well this is assuming that the internal energy of the system and the external temperature are constant, this is a whole topic in itself and its open to discussion for the few blessed souls that read my blog!!!!). So the next time you come with a great idea may be its worth while to think how this idea causes initial rest in the customer, but causes and utter chaos around the individual. I guess "peace" has its own special place in thermodynamics,........ may be it never occurs...... interestingly may be its the missing dollar!!!!

What about the missing dollar?

Have ever wondered about the story about the missing dollar? Well in a shorter version of the story, three friends go to a restaurant and order food worth $30. They pay the waiter $30 each contributing $10. The waiter takes the money to the cashier, the cashier decides to give $5 discount. The waiter keeps $2 and gives $3 back to the three friends. The three friends split it i.e. $1 each. Now looking back at the problem, each friend paid only $9 i.e. $27 total and the waiter kept $2 for himself so that total is $29 as opposed to $30. So where is the missing dollar?

The answer is very simple but requires us to look at each aspect carefully. I guess this is probably the math that we employ in our lives too. Though there is nothing missing, we always look into it and wish for that one thing that would make it perfect. Now under this premise we look forward for lot of things in life hoping that one day that missing dollar will magically appear. Some go a bit farther and anticipate the occurrence of finding missing dollar. This can be seen in two different aspects i.e. hope and desperation. Hope is the most wonderful and powerful aspect of human thinking, while desperation and defeat is a complete opposite.

In a grander scheme of things, hope creates illusions as well as opportunities to explore something really new. It also makes some people adamant so foolish in their beliefs that life itself is based on the hope. Yet it is this hope that keeps most of us alive. Hope does have magical power of curing the most dreadful ailments. On the other hand, there is defeated attitude, a feeling that the missing dollar would never appear. Of course it wouldn’t, coz there is none missing. This attitude is the biggest hurdle to the human civilization, perhaps not as deadly as having foolish hope.

In either case we lose rationality and act in a very contrary way. As easy as it seems we are in most cases in one of these either states. The time that we are not in these states are when we actually look at the “missing dollar” problem and see that there is no missing dollar. If actual payments and receipts are added everything is normal. For this clarity to occur you either need to have prior information to act upon it, or an aptitude to look beyond the problem. This is well depicted in the movie “Patch adams” in the part “How many fingers here”.

Well, again in theory that does a little bit optimistic huh!!!