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Ulric
  • Ulric
  • Advanced Member Topic Starter
05 March 2023 09:07:04
Take matter, add energy and hey presto!

"Never express yourself more clearly than you think." - Niels Bohr
DEW
  • DEW
  • Advanced Member
05 March 2023 11:27:03
From some distance down the Twitter replies, these seem relevant:

This example does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. If you introduce external energy into a system of a given chaotic state, you can increase the systems order, but total universal entropy will also increase.

One key is that the entropy change in ordering a few nails is utterly negligible compared to the entropy change in just slightly warming even one nail. They warm from the inelastic collisions. Plus the entropy change in your muscles burning fuel. No paradox at all.


IMO any apparent paradox arises from considering the box and its nails as a closed system.

Is the experiment any different in principle from, say, if I take the books on my bookshelf which are randomly arranged and sort them into order by author? Order from chaos again, but with a clearer external energy input, not to mention the entropy generated as a small amount of heat in my muscles.
War does not determine who is right, only who is left - Bertrand Russell

Chichester 12m asl
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