Nov 16, 2018
The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy - from your
coffee cup to the sparse plasma floating between stars to the
formation of black holes.
And, in short, they are:
You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't get out of the game.
These laws, which were first derived by dreaming of ideal heat
engines, turned out to have profound and vital physical and
philosophical consequences. Far from just relating to an arbitrary
concept called "temperature", they can teach us about how the
Universe began - and how it will all, inevitably end.
This episode deals with the Second Law of Thermodynamics -
regarding the inevitable increase of entropy and the ultimate fate
of the Universe. This is a law so philosophically profound that it
is believed by many to have contributed to the suicide of one of
its discoverers, Boltzmann. So, while you're still acting to keep
your own entropy low by increasing the entropy of the Universe
(a.k.a fighting the good fight), take a listen.
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Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about
the show!