Entropy in everyday life

exchemist said:
Yes exactly. The card example shows that information entropy can have a subjective element, if you try to quantify it for a physical system. Thermodynamic entropy on the other hand is objective.......but a lot less sexy, as it does not lend itself to hand-waving flights of fancy.

It was in fact you yourself who, earlier in the thread, reminded me of something I had been in danger of losing sight of: that it is really about the distribution of energy, rather than what we might perceive as "order". So you brought science into it! :p
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Oh damn! :oops:
 
Write4U said:
Yes I understand the intent, it is just that sorting cards by weight does not bring any order at all. Don't forget that the weight is achieved by the symbolic printing and the printed symbolic hierarchy of values do not match the weight of the cards in any logical manner.
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Yea, I don’t know if I’ve ever considered sorting cards by weight. But, if I were a magician......

And we all showed interest in your post, it is worthy of discussion, but if it is worthy of discussion, it is worthy of logical consideration, not untenable examples of hierarchical "ordering".
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How about this...do you see entropy in action in your own life?

I, for one want to give your posts serious consideration.
You're worth it....:)
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Spoken like a true empath; thank you for being thoughtful :)
 
exchemist said:
I never asked anything about the stability of DNA, you gormless moron.
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Are we talking about entropy or not? Seems to me that entropy is intimately involved with "stability" and "information retention".
Entropy, the measure of a system's thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. Because work is obtained from ordered molecular motion, the amount of entropy is also a measure of the molecular disorder, or randomness, of a system.
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Entropy is a function of the state of the system, so the change in entropy of a system is determined by its initial and final states. In the idealization that a process is reversible, the entropy does not change, while irreversible processes always increase the total entropy.
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Because it is determined by the number of random microstates, entropy is related to the amount of additional information needed to specify the exact physical state of a system, given its macroscopic specification. For this reason, it is often said that entropy is an expression of the disorder, or randomness of a system, or of the lack of information about it. The concept of entropy plays a central role in information theory.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
 
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Write4U said:
Are we talking about entropy or not? Seems to me that entropy is intimately involved with "stability" and "information retention".
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Entropy, yes. Entropy of DNA, yes, in both thermodynamic and information varieties.

Stability of DNA? Emphatically no.

That would be derailing the thread - again - you see.
 
Write4U said:
Don't forget that the weight is achieved by the symbolic printing and the printed symbolic hierarchy of values do not match the weight of the cards in any logical manner.
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Did you just claim that weight is defined by the symbols printed on them?

You can't pick up, say, an anvil in one hand and a feather in the other and feel the difference in weight?

Weight didn't exist before humans came along and stamped numbers on things?


I think you'll want to restate that.

Write4U said:
p.s. I do understand Dave's thrust of the argument, but that does not excuse a highly controversial 'alternative' method of ordering.
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So, there's only one way to order cards then? And it has to be using the symbols on them?

I think you'll want to restate that too.
 
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Write4U said: ↑
Don't forget that the weight is achieved by the symbolic printing and the printed symbolic hierarchy of values do not match the weight of the cards in any logical manner.
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DaveC426913 said:
Did you just claim that weight is defined by the symbols printed on them?

You can't pick up, say, an anvil in one hand and a feather in the other and feel the difference in weight?

Weight didn't exist before humans came along and stamped numbers on things?


I think you'll want to restate that.


So, there's only one way to order cards then? And it has to be using the symbols on them?

I think you'll want to restate that too.
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Agreed

Write4U

Think more about what your saying .
 
Throw a deck of cards from a decent height. Depending on local atmospherics, they should all be nicely distributed, but some might disappear (down a drain or because you threw the cards off a bridge, you dummy).

Anyways, entropy is a fairly obvious "thing" in this experiment, the cards are scattered randomly I think would be a safe conclusion.
Except, entropy really isn't a thing, at least not a physical thing (despite thermodynamics having energy per degree Kelvin). Nosiree, it's "just" a ratio, it appears when you have some kind of distribution (of energy, or equivalently of information in abstract messages).

Oh hell, it's also taken as a logarithm, which means it can't be physical.
 
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arfa brane said:
Anyways, entropy is a fairly obvious "thing" in this experiment, the cards are scattered randomly I think would be a safe conclusion.
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You mean TD entropy or information entropy?

This article I referenced argues that merely shuffling physical things (and that includes gas molecules) does not alter TD entropy.

DaveC426913 said:
"... simply changing the location of everyday macro objects from an arrangement that we commonly judge as orderly (relatively singular) to one that appears disorderly (relatively probable) is a "zero change" in the thermodynamic entropy of the objects because the number of accessible energetic microstates in any of them has not been changed. "
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arfa brane said:
Anyways, entropy is a fairly obvious "thing" in this experiment, the cards are scattered randomly I think would be a safe conclusion.
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You mean TD entropy or information entropy?

This article I referenced argues that merely shuffling physical things (and that includes gas molecules) does not alter TD entropy.

DaveC426913 said:
"... simply changing the location of everyday macro objects from an arrangement that we commonly judge as orderly (relatively singular) to one that appears disorderly (relatively probable) is a "zero change" in the thermodynamic entropy of the objects because the number of accessible energetic microstates in any of them has not been changed. "
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http://entropysite.oxy.edu/shuffled_cards.html
 
Write4U said:
No it does not. Look at the videos I have provided. The experiment is performed with a 2lb hammer and a 1/2 lb hammer. They fall at identical rates because air resistance has not yet slowed either down until they reach terminal speed in that medium. Only then does the heavier hammer have a momentum advantage.
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Correct.
My example was not with a 1/2 lb hammer; it was with a hammer-shaped piece of styrofoam - which will reach terminal velocity well before the steel hammer.
Thanks for highlighting that detail for our readers.

OK. Enough about cards. Back to main topic.
 
DaveC426913 said:
You mean TD entropy or information entropy?

This article I referenced argues that merely shuffling physical things (and that includes gas molecules) does not alter TD entropy.
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Well, a couple of observations: 1) a deck of playing cards is like a system of particles because you can scatter either of them randomly.
2) a system of particles isn't like a deck of playing cards because particles aren't labeled, generally.

Somehow this doesn't stop you defining entropy in terms of uncertainty/expectation in either case. You can even have a model that does label all the thermodynamic particles, and you get the same general result as when you don't. Thermodynamic and information entropy are the same if you use them in the same physical context, which is to say they're the same if you use information theory to derive a gas constant. That last is easier than it looks.
 
**Just my opinion**

The deck of cards can be used to describe entropy whether we are talking about info entropy or TD - because (imho) using this visual, we can easily see that disorder comes more naturally than order. We have to work at picking up the fallen cards, scattered onto the floor after dropping them. We have to put them back ''in order.'' That takes a lot of energy, but it takes very little energy for the cards to remain - unordered (disordered) As we have seen in this thread, it's really easy to go off on a tangent however, separate and away from that concept. But, generally speaking - the deck of cards offers enough convenient examples to understanding entropy, and how nature generally has a tendency to move towards lower energy. (higher entropy)


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wegs said:
**Just my opinion**

The deck of cards can be used to describe entropy whether we are talking about info entropy or TD - because (imho) using this visual, we can easily see that disorder comes more naturally than order. We have to work at picking up the fallen cards, scattered onto the floor after dropping them. We have to put them back ''in order.'' That takes a lot of energy, but it takes very little energy for the cards to remain - unordered (disordered) As we have seen in this thread, it's really easy to go off on a tangent however, separate and away from that concept. But, generally speaking - the deck of cards offers enough convenient examples to understanding entropy, and how nature generally has a tendency to move towards lower energy. (higher entropy)


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Yes the cycle of energy forms . That is Nature .
 
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So, getting away from cards for a moment...

Would the Big Bang be considered minimum entropy? Was it (beginning of the universe) at zero?
 
DaveC426913 said:
Weight didn't exist before humans came along and stamped numbers on things?
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Technically correct

Weight is a CONCEPT and has no physicality

DaveC426913 said:
You can't pick up, say, an anvil in one hand and a feather in the other and feel the difference in weight?
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DaveC426913 said:
I think you'll want to restate that.
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So no need to restate

Perhaps one of you two are confusing WEIGHT with MASS

Of course MASS exist (it's the stuff all around)
WEIGHT on the other hand does not exist, it's merely a relationship number with, again, no physicality

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
Technically correct

Weight is a CONCEPT and has no physicality




So no need to restate

Perhaps one of you two are confusing WEIGHT with MASS

Of course MASS exist (it's the stuff all around)
WEIGHT on the other hand does not exist, it's merely a relationship number with, again, no physicality

:)
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Disagree , to your last statement .

Weight is the density of any mass . Lead and Gold for example .

And yes Mass exists . And so does its density per cubic , what ever your measurement is based on .
 
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