The Entropy Engine Chapter 1: Explanation

Notes

Why was this written in such an unusual way?

In terms of structure, this chapter was written as a chiasmus. This is an ancient poetic form found in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. It is especially common in the Book of Isaiah. While we don’t typically use them today, understanding this is vital to understanding what scripture means. And this story naturally lent itself to this form.

Is this pure fiction or is this based in scientific principles?

At its best and highest, Science Fiction is not merely action adventures in space. It is investigating how an aspect of science or a change in technology, impacts the human condition. This is my aspiration with this story, because the fundamental ideas behind this science are true, even if Entropy Engines are impossible. This is reading the fine-print of physics, so to speak.

What is Entropy?

First, it is essential to understand that entropy is not disorder, except coincidentally. Let me emphasize this. Nowhere in the definition of entropy is disorder used or mentioned. Thinking of it as disorder is a pop science level of understanding.

It is true, that disorder is often used as a way to conceptualize entropy. And for us in our current state, when entropy increases, so does disorder. But we should be clear to not overextend the analogy. Entropy (S) is defined in terms of the possible number of microstates (?) for a given condition.

For mathematical reasons, this is most easily done with a natural logarithm. And k is a proportionality constant called the Boltzmann Constant.

In short, entropy is a measure of the number of possibilities, the number of possible microstates for every macrostate. And if entropy always increases, the overall total number of possible microstates must go up. And because there are more ways to be disordered than ordered, then disorder is more probable.

Entropy Engines are impossible because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that for any process the entropy change must be equal to or greater than zero. In any non-reversable process, entropy always increases. But in no case does the net entropy decrease.

 What is the Heat Death of the Universe?

If entropy always increases and the stars have finished burning the last of their fuel, then we have what is called the Heat Death of the Universe or the Big Freeze. There is no available free energy to do any work and everything becomes a uniform temperature a little above absolute zero. Life becomes impossible. This is one possible end of the universe, based on the straightforward application of the laws of thermodynamics. Other possible ends for our universe include unlimited expansion of space-time (Big Rip), or a reversal in the expansion of space-time (Big Crunch) or decay of space-time itself to a lower energy state (false vacuum or Big Slurp), depending on the fine details of the universe and of space-time itself.

What else does Entropy apply to?

The next thing to understand is that entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics are purely statistical laws. Strictly speaking, this should be called Statistical Mechanics. These laws are of such generality and broad scope, that they can apply to contexts far removed from physics. Entropy is not confined to atoms and molecules. It has been applied to Information theory, computing, game theory and machine learning. It has been used with protein folding, population genetics, epidemiology, and neuroscience. It has been applied to economics, social science, psychology, linguistics, crowd dynamics, political science and marketing.

Thus, Entropy need not be only applied to physical things. The principles are broad enough to apply to spirituality as well. Jacob’s warning in the Book of Mormon may be considered in light of spiritual entropy: “For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God…”  (2 Ne. 9: 8)

Likewise, the warning given to Adam and Eve, that when they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die sounds suggestively similar to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

If there are more ways for us to sin, than there are to keep the commandments, in our current condition, then sin is statistically more likely. The Strait and Narrow path is statistically improbable and it will take deliberate work to get there.

But if entropy is possibilities, then that means entropy is linked to Agency, our free will to choose different choices, good or bad. If we don’t have different possibilities, then any choices we might have are meaningless. We could not make meaningful choices that ultimately gave us different outcomes.

If entropy decreased instead of increasing, then the number of possible futures we could have would also decrease. It would decrease to the point where all mankind would have a single spiritual fate, which could only be Hell. A kind of spiritual Heat Death of the Universe.

Now, do we know for sure that this is how Satan restricts agency or how God creates life? Of course not, but it is consistent with it. And it is a possible way for agency to be restricted, if such a thing as an Entropy Engine were possible. It is also suggestive, that the purpose of the War in Heaven was establishing the Second Law of Thermodynamics for our universe, so we could have choice. And even if this is in error, effects like these would still be important for greater levels of intelligence.

Is this just so much arguing about how fast everything is dying?

Is this all there is?

This is interesting enough, but let’s stop for a moment and consider the definition of temperature.

All you need to understand about this equation, is that this is a kind of exchange rate between energy ( E ) and entropy (S). And just what the exchange rate is, depends on the temperature. In typical circumstances, the exchange rate is higher for cold materials and lower for warm materials.

For example, let’s consider an idea that seems obvious, if we put ice cubes in warm water, then the ice will melt and the warm water will cool. This will happen because the energy exchanged is the same, but entropy that the (cold) ice cubes gain is more than the amount the (warm) water loses by cooling. The warm water loses energy and entropy, but the net effect is that entropy has increased, because the ice gained more entropy than was lost.

But, what if the amount of entropy change for the warm water was greater than for the ice? Then we would have a very unusual situation, where energy would naturally flow from cold to hot, until the ice was at absolute zero and the water was as hot as possible. That would be very strange! Instead of entropy making everything uniform, it would separate into hot and cold regions.

Does this ever happen in the real world? Surprisingly, yes, this does happen under very special limited circumstances. If water is heated a little above its boiling point, without beginning to boil, then it is in a state called super-heated. In this meta-stable condition any perturbation will cause part of the water to destabilize. Parts of it will pull heat from other parts of the water. Part will suddenly and spontaneously explosively boil, and part will cool down to the boiling point. Amusing story – I once did this to myself with a microwave and a cup of water. I got to see it close up, before it exploded in my face.

So how would we accomplish this?

One of the early paradoxes of Thermodynamics was called Maxwell’s Demon. In this case, a decidedly less malicious demon controls a door between two regions. He opens the door based on how fast the molecules are moving. This effectively sorts the regions into hot and cold which reduces entropy, which violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In fact, this is a bit like the Entropy Engine.

However, once you take into consideration the amount of computation and information necessary to sort molecules, the total amount of entropy would increase.

When we formulate the laws of Thermodynamics (Statistical Mechanics), then we use things like energy and temperature and the number of atoms. But in most cases, information as a quantity and variable, is left out. For most cases, it is not a significant factor.

If intelligence were capable of creating new states, not possible in nature, and if greater intelligence could create more states, then instead of heat flowing from hot to cold, it would flow from the least intelligent to the most intelligent. But in order to do this, the intelligence must be far, far beyond anything we have even considered. And creation must be a continual way of life, not a one-time event.

But our artificial intelligence and computational abilities are nowhere near this level of power in the foreseeable future. But if we could have AI and computational abilities this powerful, then effects such as in this story, are possible. We will certainly need computational abilities beyond what we understand from our current knowledge of physics.