2min chapter

Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking cover image

Sean Carroll: The Passage of Time and the Meaning of Life

Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking

CHAPTER

Entropy in Bolt Formulation Is Not Just a Rough Idea

Entropy is a way of counting how many ways there are to rearrange the fundamental constituents of a system so that it microscopically looks the same. It's not all surprising that entropy goes up as a function of time, because there are more ways to be high than low. If you have a medium entropy system and just let it go, let it do its thing, let it evolve into the universe, it will naturally increase in entropy since there are so many more configurations that look that way. And indeed, that is exactly true. Think of the arrow of time this way: if you are an astronaut floating out there in space, there'd be no difference between up, down,

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