On 10 November 2014 16:01, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> LizR wrote: > >> On 8 November 2014 16:53, John Clark <[email protected] <mailto: >> [email protected]>> wrote: >> >> On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 3:56 PM, meekerdb <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> > I'd say that expansion of the universe is almost necessary, >> not contingent. >> I'd say that by about 1850 when people started to have a >> understanding of what Entropy was physicists had all they needed to >> have known that the universe must have started out in a very very >> low entropy state, that is to say they could have predicted the Big >> Bang in the early to mid 19th century; and they wouldn't have needed >> to go near a telescope to do so. But unfortunately they didn't, it's >> one of the great failures of nerve or imagination in the history of >> science. >> Another feature of the big bang / expanding universe is that it >> continually raises the entropy ceiling (maxium entropy that can exist in a >> given volume). >> > > I think you should stop saying this. It is not true. You have not defined > what you mean by "maximum entropy" nor have you specified how that maximum > is calculated. If the maximum is defined as when all available degrees of > freedom are in thermal equilibrium, then the universe has never been in > such a state of maximum entropy, and it probably will not be until all > matter has collapsed into black holes and these have decayed by Hawking > radiation. > I'm dealing with classical thermodynamics, i.e. ignoring gravity and only talking about the arrangements of particles. I don't know how to incorporate gravity into the picture. If that makes what I'm suggesting inadmissible, fair enough. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
