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Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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ant

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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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"So the answer to why isn’t everything in equilibrium is that there hasn’t been enough time since the big bang for all the stars to die"

That wasnt exactly my question, dude. :meh:

what is or is there a scientific consensus that states a mechanical account of how entropy is brought about?

so far from what im reading here, you are saying it just happens because it eventually has to happen.
doesnt true explanation include some sort of mechanical account?
Or are you wanting to say entropy is just a brute fact that requires no explanation that has handles to it ?
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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ant:
what is or is there a scientific consensus that states a mechanical account of how entropy is brought about?

so far from what im reading here, you are saying it just happens because it eventually has to happen. doesnt true explanation include some sort of mechanical account?
to a certain extent, as long as you are referencing things built out of something else, yes. Entropy is a concept we can describe with physical underpinnings, but not so much with something like the functioning of the electromagnetic force.

But in entropy what’s happening is that things have different energy levels. All energy basically boils down to how fast parts are moving around. Objects that are hot have atoms which are whizzing around faster than objects which are cool. This is what’s happening in the transitions from solid, liquid, gas and plasma.

A block of solid steel has rigidly aligned atoms which can move a bit, but remain in the same position relative to their neighboring atoms. When you heat that block of steel up until it’s red hot, all the atoms are still in more or less the same place, but they are whipping back and forth within those confines very fast and furiously. When you touch it, the reason it burns is because some of those very fast atoms smack into the atoms in your finger. The steel atoms slow down a bit, but the atoms in your finger RACE away with all this imparted energy, which breaks their bonds to the other atoms and causes damage to your skin.

As the steel grows still hotter the energy, the speed the atoms are moving, is enough to overcome the valence electron bonding energy and they begin to roll past each other in a liquid, rather than staying in a crystalline matrix. Still hotter and they escape entirely, becoming a gas. Hotter still and the electrons move too fast, escaping the nucleus turning it into a plasma.

Each of these states is a higher energy state. What makes them unstable is that they are so energetic that it takes more and more energy to keep them contained. High energy states disperse and fall apart because they are moving too much to stay together. Low energy states aren’t moving fast enough to escape their bonds, and so remain stable longer.

This is what’s producing the statistical analysis that high energy states trend toward lower energy. The simple fact that things that move fast don’t stay put. They disperse, run into other things, lose energy, slow down, and eventually stay put once they are low energy.
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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ant:help me here:
if states of thermo equiibrium are the most overwhelmingly probable ones why is the world we live in so full of instances that are so far from equilibrium?

johnson1010:
"So the answer to why isn’t everything in equilibrium is that there hasn’t been enough time since the big bang for all the stars to die"
that wasn't a fair rephrasing of your question?
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Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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you did not address my question.
look at it again if you wish, if not, thats okay

lets clear up what you wrote here:

Johson wrote:
"There are several things wrong with this argument. First and most glaring is that the earth is not a closed system."

In an open system;

"In open systems, matter may flow in and out of the system boundaries."

Have earth's system boundries been defined. and if so, what is the matter that flows in and out of it, confirmed by scientifc observation?
can you provide a link?

Thanks. good stuff. :)
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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"Energy enters our system from the sun, and is radiated off the planet and into the depths of space through the whole range of the electromagnetic spectrum"

What is the difference between radiated and exchanged?
My understanding is that closed systems exchange energy but NOT matter

Therefor the earth is not a true open system by definition.
Are you saying the earth exchanges or "radiates" matter into its surrondings?
How so and what matter might that be?
What are you claiming it is? Open or Isolated?
You certainly would not say it's an Isolated System. And you disagree that it's a Closed System.


I have lots more questions.
Last edited by ant on Tue Sep 24, 2013 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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Look at what you wrote here, Johnson:

"Second problem with this argument apparently is the assumption that structured objects are unlikely to occur on their own,..,"

Lets leave God out of this and talk about the word "unlikely"

Are you saying that "structured objects" and ultimatley "life" as we define it were not unlikely but highly probable in a universe of hight entropy?

Really?
If the universe is moving toward highly probable states of thermo equilibrium then it must be moving from a highly improbable state, correct?
Again I ask, why is it that the world we see is so full of situations that are far from equilibrium?

Scientists posit that entropy would have needed to start very very low as in the starting point of entropy had a one chance out of ten to the ten to the 23rd power of being chosen randomly.
That is immensely improbable.
Would you say this event was not unlikely? If so, why?

Or would you say that at this point of immense improbability, no explanation is needed?
Why?
Is this just a happy coincidence and not anything in need of explanation?
An astonishing fact needs no explanation from science?
Last edited by ant on Tue Sep 24, 2013 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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Sorry, i lost a lengthy reply i had typed up.

It made me too sad to try again right away.

I'll get back to this in a bit!
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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johnson1010 wrote:Sorry, i lost a lengthy reply i had typed up.

It made me too sad to try again right away.

I'll get back to this in a bit!

:egg:
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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Johson wrote:
"There are several things wrong with this argument. First and most glaring is that the earth is not a closed system."

In an open system;

"In open systems, matter may flow in and out of the system boundaries."

Have earth's system boundries been defined. and if so, what is the matter that flows in and out of it, confirmed by scientifc observation?
can you provide a link?
I don’t think anyone would have done a rigorous job of checking the earth’s boundaries. First you have to figure out what it is you are trying to test. In an internal combustion engine for instance, you set the parameters of what you are trying to determine happens with the energy of the fuel in the system. There isn’t much motive to pursue this as rigorously as you would to try to press a drive train for a few more MPGs.

You can call the engine, and the gallon of gas, the whole system. And that’s fine. You test how much energy you can eek out of that gallon of gas, and you can call that system closed for the purpose of that test. All the same it is true that the engine is not a closed system. It exists on the surface of our planet. If you wanted to look at the full life of the engine’s existence, you would have to expand the parameters.

So when we are talking about the earth what do you have to do to isolate the earth from the rest of the environment, so you can talk about how energy is used in our system? Well, if the earth is being compared to an engine one thing that’s different, is that the earth isn’t filled up like a gas tank, but instead constantly under a deluge of energy from the sun. To make a more linear comparison we would have to draw a line and say, “from sunset today, on this meridian, no more energy can come into the earth from external sources. This gives us our “full tank of gas”.

What outside influences are acting on the earth’s energy budget? The biggest contributor by far is the sun. So that means the sun has to be gone. No more solar bombardment. No more electromagnetic energy, no more solar winds, which are ionized star matter ejected through space, no more gravitational tidal influence, which also performs a lot of work here. This one is harder to pin down in my mind what exactly would happen. I’m pretty sure it would mess with our daily revolutions and influence the earth’s core. That means lesser geo-thermal activity, which is part of our “gas tank”, but also a reduction in our magnetic field. The EM impact is more obvious. Complete darkness, with the loss of our stored solar energy emitted back into space in a fairly short time. Days or weeks, I would think, before the earth was frozen on the surface.

The moon would have to go as well. It has a tidal influence. Without the sun, Jupiter and Saturn then turn into the big dogs, and after a while we will be… interacting with those planets strongly. By collision, or at the least tidal influence. Best to just remove them from the picture as well.

So we would radiate off our energy in short order, the surface of the planet would freeze over. All surface life would die. Oceans and lakes would freeze over to great depth. Geo thermal vents at the ocean’s floor would remain active for as long as our core generated heat and radiation, but I don’t know how the absence of the sun would effect that.
"Energy enters our system from the sun, and is radiated off the planet and into the depths of space through the whole range of the electromagnetic spectrum"

What is the difference between radiated and exchanged?
My understanding is that closed systems exchange energy but NOT matter
Heat exchange is when a red-hot plate of iron touches an ice cube. The atoms of the iron are vibrating very fast and vigorously, the ice atoms less-so. If you zoomed way down to look at the atoms as they approach, the iron atom flies in with tremendous speed and collides with the water particle. The iron atom loses some of it’s speed, which was imparted to the water through an electromagnetic emission. In other words, the atoms never “touch”. They get close, hose eachother with infra-red photons (heat energy currency) and are repelled from eachother by that exchange. Because of the energy differences though, this is a bit like a fire-truck running headlong into a giant beach ball.

Technically speaking, the beach ball shoved back at the fire truck, but you won’t really be able to notice that. What is obvious, is that the beach ball now is moving a lot faster than it was. And so the same is true of the metal and water particles.

This is a heat exchange, where energy is transferred from one material into another.

When I talk about the earth radiating its energy into space everything is the same except the fast particle which is firing infra-red photons into space doesn’t have a “target”. There is no water particle that will intercept that photon, and shove back with its own photon. Instead the photons whiz off into empty space and escape our system. (meaning they don’t come back to the earth)
Therefor the earth is not a true open system by definition.
Are you saying the earth exchanges or "radiates" matter into its surrondings?
How so and what matter might that be?
What are you claiming it is? Open or Isolated?
You certainly would not say it's an Isolated System. And you disagree that it's a Closed System.
The main influences on the earth are the sun, first and for-most, then probably the moon, Luna. As I said above, the earth as a closed system would be just the earth and it’s “full gas tank”, which would be the absorbed energy of the sun, the geothermal activity at the core, and not much else. This system will lose it’s energy content pretty quickly so that it would be un-inhabitable.

But the earth is constantly bathed by the sun’s energy, and that’s not really a variable that we can control. So if you want to talk about the earth as a thermal system, you HAVE to include the sun, and whatever other features of space there may be which input energy to the planet. So the earth is an open system. For the most part I believe you could call the solar system a closed system, though what ultimate effect WIMPs and cosmic radiation might have in our neighborhood I don’t know. Perhaps those influences cannot be dismissed, but that would be my guess.

As for what the earth is radiating, infra-red photons, primarily. But we also are losing light elements like Hydrogen and Helium at the upper atmosphere, Charged particles, like free radicals and Ions which have been driven apart by the Sun’s energies and cosmic influences like gamma bursts, and particulate ejected from our atmosphere by collision with space debris, though I think that’s a net gain.

Johnson:
"Second problem with this argument apparently is the assumption that structured objects are unlikely to occur on their own,..,"

Ant:
Lets leave God out of this and talk about the word "unlikely"

Are you saying that "structured objects" and ultimatley "life" as we define it were not unlikely but highly probable in a universe of hight entropy?
Yes.
Really?
Yes, really.

Matter cannot gain structure except through the introduction of more and more entropy. What is a low entropy state? What is our local low entropy spike? The sun.

That gigantic roiling ball of thermo-nuclear explosion is a low entropy system. And nothing like the earth can exist there. The energy levels are too high. Molecules get blasted apart into constituent atoms. Atoms are stripped of their electrons so they can’t even form chemical compounds.

You need low energy conditions for chemical reactions to take root. A drop of water NEEDS high entropy conditions to exist. The same with all chemical reactions.

Again, low entropy doesn’t mean ordered to human preferences. Think of this.

I think a pyramid or a cube look more orderly than a sphere. If I’m designing an appealing structure for people to look at, a nice grid, or geometric pattern will please the eye. But in actuality, a sphere is the more ordered system. It has the most symmetry.

If the universe is moving toward highly probable states of thermo equilibrium then it must be moving from a highly improbable state, correct?
Again I ask, why is it that the world we see is so full of situations that are far from equilibrium?
I can’t give you a “why” because this is a result of the boundary condition at the big bang. “How” there is a trend from low entropy to high entropy is that in the past there was a circumstance called the big bang, which was of exquisitely low entropy. We don’t know how that condition arose, but it is because of that boundary condition that things have been flattening out ever since. Some day we might figure out the conditions that lead to that state, but so far we don’t know.

Why do we see states far from equilibrium? Because we can’t exist in a place that is IN thermal equilibrium. There needs to be an imbalance in energy to do work. You, sitting there, reading this text, are doing work. Your cells are respiring, turning calories and oxygen into chemical compounds which can drive the work that your cells need to do to carry on living.

If you were in a place of thermal equilibrium you would freeze to death in seconds, stop living, and not be able to enjoy the fact that you were in thermal equilibrium. So why do we live close to a star? Because if there wasn’t a star, or the right kind of star, or a stable enough star, then we, or our single celled ancestors would never have survived long enough to grow up into thinking beings. The conditions are right for us only in this “goldilocks zone”.

Scientists posit that entropy would have needed to start very very low as in the starting point of entropy had a one chance out of ten to the ten to the 23rd power of being chosen randomly.
That is immensely improbable.
Would you say this event was not unlikely? If so, why?

Or would you say that at this point of immense improbability, no explanation is needed?

Why?

Is this just a happy coincidence and not anything in need of explanation?
An astonishing fact needs no explanation from science?
No, no! I am very interested to know what lead to the big bang! The big bang does seem to be THE rarest event we know of that actually happened. I ventured a guess as to where I imagine that singularity might come from, and I am intensely curious about it. I think there IS an explanation for it, but I can only concede that I don’t know what that explanation is!

People are, and will be hard at work trying to understand that event for decades to come, and once that IS figured out, they will have a new lead to chase down!

So far we have only a partial understanding. We know quite a lot about the conditions directly after the big bang, but before that moment, some tiny fraction of a second after the big bang, there is legitimate confusion. We have some promising hints. Things to look into, certainly, but nothing on the order of the confidence we have about the events that followed.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Evolution and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

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i think the best part of this discussion resides here:
Ant:

Are you saying that "structured objects" and ultimatley "life" as we define it were not unlikely but highly probable in a universe of hight entropy?

Yes.
ant:
Really?
Yes, really.
You just have to think about all earlier states of entropy, where there are tall spikes like the sun. Before the universe expanded enough to form stars, there weren't even heavy elements like carbon. Carbon is the backbone of chemistry, without which organic life as we know it would be impossible since we are mostly carbon compounds. (by type, not weight!)

THe universe was just hydrogen, a tiny bit of lithium, and helium, a noble gas! There is no interesting chemistry to be had with those elements. The universe needed the higher entropy conditions of star formation, thermal nuclear reactions, and star death to give rise to what we think of as interesting chemistry! Before stars, the universe was just proton plasma! Atoms couldn't even form, and that's why there is the cosmic microwave background barrier!

Each step down from higher and higher energy concentrations, which mean lower and lower entropy, to cooler states allows for more complex and interesting things to happen in our universe.

The harder you cook matter, the simpler, and less interesting it gets. Life needs entropy! Entropy is the HOW of life!

... and it's ultimate downfall.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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