The minute we're born we begin to die. That is the ultimate conclusion to life. Nothing stays the same. Everything is always moving toward "decline degeneration". That's kinda depressing isn't it Durdle? Thank you for your reply and Happy Monday. What would it take to reverse entropy? Besides magic?
Ah, yes, but the progression of life is not entropic. Entropy (as I understand it) is essentially an end state in which everything is on one uniform level.
It's actually a term from Thermodynamics, which is perhaps the most difficult field of Physics, so I was told by a scientist who'd gained his PhD in thermodynamics. Entropy and its friend Enthalpy, which I don't understand, are vital not only in academic Physics but also in applying that science to Engineering, in designing heat engines (internal-combustion engines, gas and steam turbines, jet engines).
Organisms are born or seeded, grow, live and eventually die; but after death, their materials are converted into simple compounds and elements that are returned to the world for re-use. All that needs an input of energy, ultimately from the Sun, for life on Earth, at all stages; including the rebuilding of those borrowed chemicals into new life or new rocks. So our lives and those of any other organisms, are finite, but they are not entropic; and nor is the Universe, otherwise it would not work.
So whilst death is the "ultimate conclusion" to life as an individual human, cat, whale or tree, it is not so for life in general; and that state will continue until the Sun itself dies and renders the planet uninhabitable by anything in doing so. Even that would not be entropic. The Solar System would continue but in a very altered state, certainly for a very long time (in astronomical terms).
Depressing? I don't find it so. Well, of course I don't want to die, but despite our artificial ways of living we have created, we are still just a species of organism, and I accept that everything natural has its own life-span within the huge progression of Nature.
Thank you for your profoundly informative beautiful and poetic reply Durdle. Doesn't entropy always involve decay? Reading what you wrote above brings to mind Zoroastianism. Many decades ago I worked for an Architect who gave me a project to research. To find the common denominator(s) among all the world religions. He was charged with designing 12 places of worship where all faiths would feel comfortable. That's how I happened upon Zoroastrianism. I had never heard of it. But as I recall (this research was done 55 years ago) when people die they are placed on a cliff or hill and left for the birds to devour them. Rather than rotting away beneath the earth they go back to the earth via being food for other living creatures. Now of course it's horrific on one level but really on another level I think it's rather beautiful. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Life is an endless circle. I just wish decay could be reversed and as we age we become stronger and healthier. There was a movie with Brad Pitt titled "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". He was born old and died an infant. The cycle was reversed. I know death is inevitable but why couldn't we die healthy and not ill and in pain and in decline having suffered for years before we leave this plane? I had never heard of the other word enthalpy. I looked it up and read these words..enthalpy is"the internal energy of a system plus the product of the pressure and volume of the system during the process which changes the quantity which is equal to the heat transferred". Now isn't that simply that energy is never destroyed...it just changes form?
This post was edited by RosieG at December 17, 2018 10:45 AM MST
That funeral rite is called "excarnation", and also appeared in Indian, Tibetan and some North American cultures - perhaps elsewhere but those are the examples I know of.
Yes, it does help the wild animals around at the time, but decomposition simply leads to the same eventual result.
For a system to reach entropy its processes (energy transfers and conversions) do have to decay, until everything is at the same level so no further transfer can occur.
Thank you for finding the definition of enthalpy. I'd only seen it in very advanced engineering text-books that assume you already know what it is, so need now how to use it in the mathematics. You are right though - energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only converted or transferred. That is perhaps THE fundamental Law of the whole universe, and is why the term "renewable energy" is rather unfortunate. Enthalpy is thermodynamics' own application of that law.
Are you telling me I helped YOU understand enthalpy? Wow! That really me pleases me Durdle because you are always informing me and educating me and helping me to understand things I did not know. The fact that I could help you too? Wow. I am so happy you told me that. It's like a teacher saying he/she got new insight from what I said. You know I never thought about it before but you're absolutely right. If energy is never destroyed how in the heck can it be renewed? Of course you know I have to ask and will give you blind attribution. Boy there really are a lot of gibberish things in the world aren't there? All you have to do is stop and think and bingo! There's another one! Thank you for your reply and Happy Tuesday! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at December 18, 2018 8:18 AM MST
Eventually the universe will be filled with giant, (compared to us) cold balls of iron and which is the final product of both fusion and fission reactions. Ad some neutron stars to this mix. Since everything in the universe is expanding, the only things left will be motion, gravity and nuclear forces. However, if two giant balls of iron were close enough and collided, huge amounts of energy would be produced. Keep in mind that this is how I visualize it, with only limited knowledge. Bottom line (to me) is that entropy is forever.
What of the heavier elements? I think I'm right that stars around the size of the Sun, won't produce anything above iron. It takes a supernova to produce the heavy elements, but that flings them out into space, so presumably the void around all those giant iron spheres would be infused with a very, very rarefied mist of the other materials.
Yes, that's how I understand entropy too, in an astronomical sense - it's for ever. I'm not sure of its significance in engineering thermodynamics.
Durdle 