Excerpt from the Almost Complete Guide to Decay, Disorder and the Question of Whether That’s Really a Bad Thing, 2nd corrected edition
Entropy
Noun | /ˈɛntrəpi/
The measure of how much everything tends over time toward disorder – including your drawers, your to-do lists, and your hairstyle.
Often described as “chaos increases,” which sounds dramatic but is about as precise as saying “water is kind of wet.”
In thermodynamics, entropy describes the statistical probability that systems move from an unlikely (ordered) state to a more likely (disordered) one. In practice, that means: a puzzle will never sort itself, but it will reliably fall apart if you shake the box hard enough.
Note: Entropy is not a malicious force. It’s more like the universe’s silent contractual partner, gently reminding you that every system will eventually collapse in on itself.
Everyday examples:
– Milk in coffee: never separable again, no matter how much you stir.
– Files on your desktop: over time, they develop their own geometry.
– Relationships: see thermodynamics, third law – most stable when both sides are equally indifferent.
Misunderstandings:
Entropy does not mean “everything gets worse.” It only means: everything gets more evenly distributed. A tidy room has fewer possibilities than a messy one – which is why, in the end, the messy one wins. (Also known as: “My teenager’s room explains thermodynamics better than any physics textbook.) Strikingly, some systems – not unlike teenagers, though with different implications – stubbornly refuse to accept falling apart. Tupperware lids in drawers, for example, often cling with surprising loyalty to their containers – almost as if matter itself were protesting against the law of entropy. One might think resistance to chaos is universal.¹
Cosmic dimensions:
On the large scale, entropy means the universe is heading toward a “heat death” – a state of maximum equal distribution, in which nothing interesting happens anymore.
On the small scale, it means that batteries are always dead precisely when you really need them.
Philosophical interpretation:
Order is a human invention. Entropy is the reminder that we ourselves are part of a system that not only allows change but enforces it.
What we call “decay” could also simply be the transformation into a new state. From dust comes star, from star comes dust, and in between humans write books about it.
When everything falls apart: maybe the real art is not to stop decay, but to shape it.
Question to go:
So is entropy the enemy – or just the reminder that order is only ever a snapshot?
My granny always said: “It’s not messy, just well distributed.” She probably didn’t mean the universe – but I 'm fine with that.
¹ Household thermodynamics: entropy appears most clearly where order should be mandatory – Tupperware drawers, cable boxes, and tool chests. Physicists call it the “second law.” Families call it “The Curse of the Missing Lid?!”.
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