From the perspective of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics can be described as: in the process of irreversible heat, the micro increment of entropy is always greater than zero.

So... the question is, what exactly is entropy?

Statistically, entropy measures the disorder of the system, that is, the more disorganized the system, the greater its entropy.

In short, heat flows from hot places to cold places, and after enough time, all heat will average.This is an obvious feature, no mystery: boiling water cools down and ice melts.In order to reverse these processes, you have to expend additional energy.

But it is such a simple law, so annoying, that it is full of despair in the world.

Scientists would rather not find it, even someone because it committed suicide.

In the broadest sense, the second law of thermodynamics holds that the “entropy” of the universe is increasing day by day.

For example, the clockwork of a mechanical watch is always getting looser; you can hold it tight, but it requires a little energy.This energy comes from a piece of bread you eat, the wheat that makes bread, and the energy that needs to absorb sunlight during growth.

In order to provide this energy, the sun needs to consume its hydrogen for nuclear reactions.

In short, the reduction of entropy in every part of the universe must come at the expense of increased entropy elsewhere.

“In a closed system, entropy is always enlarged, so large that it cannot be greater.At this point, a state of perfectly uniform thermal equilibrium within the system does not change, unless the outside world provides new energy to the system.”

But for the universe, there is no “externality.”Therefore, once the universe reaches a state of thermal equilibrium, it is completely dead, and this final result is referred to as "heat silence".

By then, the stars were extinguished, the black hole died, and all the atoms were almost evenly distributed in space, with the same temperature in all space.

In the heat-distiny era, quantum events on a small scale became the ultimate dominating.

"Heavy silence" is a great conjecture for human beings to the end of the universe.

It will take at least 101,000 years for the entire universe to reach thermal silence, and for humans, this ending is too far away.

So, let’s go back to a smaller perspective to describe the “entropy augmentation theory.”

A house, if no one cleans, will inevitably be covered with dust with the passage of time.At this time, we can think that the disorder of the room has increased, that is, the entropy of the entire room has increased spontaneously.

If someone enters the room to clean and the room becomes clean, is the entropy of the room reduced?

Yes, the local entropy is reduced, but the entropy of "people + room" is not reduced.

People expend physical strength during the cleaning process, which leads to a decrease in the entropy of the isolated system of the “room”.Because the energy conversion process will inevitably produce heat energy that cannot do the work, so this increment is greater than the disorder caused by the "room is cleaned" to reduce.

Overall, the entropy value of the "people + room" system has increased.

Scientists are very dissatisfied with this entropy conclusion, which means that the disorder of the world has been increasing, and the future is not good.

In order to find a more powerful counterexample, people try to create a perpetual motion or other way to avoid the increase in entropy.

In 1871, the British physicist Maxwell conceived of an experiment in which a box was split in two by a board, with a living door, and a small elves who were caught from Mount Haigar to do the work of the spirit.

The elves can measure the speed of the gas molecules, for the right side of the molecule, if the speed is fast, he will open the door to let it pass, slow to close the door and not let it pass.

For the molecules from the left, the speed is slow to let pass, and the speed is not allowed to pass.

After a period of time, the molecular speed on the left side of the box will be very fast, and the right side will be very slow.

This means that the disorder of the box is reduced and the entropy is reduced.

The witty Maxwell also assumed that the living door was neither mass nor frictionless, so the elves did not work in the process, which did not violate the second law of thermodynamics?

It was not until 60 years later that the problem was successfully resolved.

The Hungarian physicist Szilard proposed that the work is the "intelligence" of the elves.

He believes that the observation process of obtaining information (the speed of the pixie to judge the molecules) requires energy, which will inevitably lead to an increase in entropy, and its number is not less than the entropy that is reduced by the fact that the molecules become orderly.

In this way, the whole system composed of boxes, molecules and elves still obeys the second law of thermodynamics.

Looking back, it is logical that it is logical to get information that requires extra work, but at the end of the 19th century, wisdom such as Maxwell did not see the "observation ability" of the elves, which had an impact on the box-molecule-monoster system.

It was not until the 20th century that physicists realized that the relationship between information and physics was understood after the observer played an important role in quantum mechanics.

One would ask, then, why, since all the processes of nature eventually tend to be disordered, why is there such a highly ordered existence of life?

In thinking about this philosophical question, Schrinter proposed in his book "What is life" written in the 1940s that life extracts "orderly" from the environment to maintain its own "order".

Eating and drinking is the process of ingesting "orderly", and the order of food is reduced through digestion, and finally the "disorderly" is discharged back into the environment in the way of Lazarus.

In addition, organisms emit heat and release the remaining entropy produced in the physiological process into the environment.Higher body temperature in warm-blooded animals is conducive to more efficient elimination of entropy, thus producing a more intense life process.)

In general, the entropy of emissions is greater than the negative entropy ingested, so the entropy increase principle is met.

In this sense, the emergence of life, especially intelligent life, has accelerated the homology of energy and greatly promoted the disordered process of the universe!

“We guessed that the universe was too slow to abandon the whole process of heat and silence, and thus created life, was it not so?”

For example, the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas release the energy that was originally stored in fossil fuels, so that it is distributed more quickly in the form of radiation, heat transfer, etc., and the use of nuclear energy, and even gives life the ability to release the energy inside the atom.

If the entropy increase process is likened to demolition, then intelligent beings are like the city management invited by the universe.

The higher the level of civilization, the more able to help the universe return to heat.

So it seems that the purpose of the universe is not like a well-planned and dramatic suicide.

Why does the universe commit suicide?Why do you want to go back to the heat?

Why does entropy increase spontaneously, not decrease?

Why set such rules?

Unfortunately, this is a cosmic-level philosophical question, and we don’t know the answer.

The above part is the "entropy augmentation theory in thermodynamics".

We can extend the concept of entropy to other aspects and find it everywhere.

For example, a glass of water, after dripping into a drop of ink, because of the heat movement between the molecules, it will slowly spread until the ink is evenly distributed.The ink went from orderly to disorder, and it became extremely difficult to return to the way it was.

This is an entropy process.

A pile of sand, it takes a lot of effort to pile into a cone, and it will slowly collapse... This is also the process of entropy.

The universe is decaying, and everything in the human world is decaying.

Life, this highly ordered existence, is a low-entropy body.But life is not eternal, and individual life can also get sick and age.

From the moment a person is born, the entropy is constantly changing until the moment of death, which increases the entropy of its individual to the maximum.

This entropy can be vaguely quantified, is specific, we can use "physical health indicators", "life" and so on to simply replace.

If because of a reasonable lifestyle, or some technology, the equivalent of negative entropy for the living body, the increase in entropy will become more slow, or even less possible.

But overall, the measurement of an individual’s entropy is still a slow process of increasing until the individual dies.

Now let’s talk about civilization.

Nothing in the universe is eternal, and we assume that civilization has its own entropy value, but the entropy of civilization is more abstract.

It is difficult to calculate how large the entropy of civilization is.It changes all the time and can only be easily estimated based on some performance.

In the age of the earth, there are many reasons for dynastic change, regime change, and a variety of reasons, but in the end, can entropy be used to measure the degree of order in it?

There are many factors that affect the entropy of civilization, including but not limited to the external environment, science and technology, social system, population size, population quality, and so on.

In particular, the scientific and technological factors are quite significant negative entropy, as long as science can continue to progress, civilization can simply maintain strong prosperity.

If the Entropy Hydration Hypothesis holds, we must be careful, because entropy will always increase spontaneously, and we must find ways to control its entropy increase, whether social or technological.

Otherwise, the annihilation of civilization will become an inevitable event.

From this point of view, tomorrow is not good... According to the entropy growth theory, tomorrow will only naturally become worse, and will not naturally become better.

This is also a hypothesis on the philosophical tree of the universe.

Cosmic sociologist Professor Heigl.