
Originally Posted by
Schmaven
I think you're confusing entropy with enthalpy. Entropy is a measure of disorder in a system. And at best any process can be reversible, meaning that no entropy is generated. But this is an ideal case, as energy is nearly always lost due to friction and other things, causing entropy (the disorder) to increase as the process happens. When something producing entropy happens, it cannot be run backwards (how do you reverse the effects of friction? You can't.) Heat does work like a fluid, and the measure of how much heat per mass something contains is called enthalpy.
Some say that entropy is the thermodynamic arrow of time, meaning that if as entropy increases, time also increases, so if you follow the path of increasing entropy, you are going forwards in time.
As time goes on, more disorder and chaos is created in the universe. This does seem a little weird, as systems tend to change from unstable configurations to stable ones. However the process by which all things change is what causes the disorder and chaos. If everything is assumed to at one time be in perfect order, yet has been constantly changing since then, it must be in a state of disorder.
Because things are created in unstable configurations all the time (through processes causing disorder), and everything that is created physically will eventually deteriorate (gradually lose energy and become more stable), each of which causing disorder, disorder is energetically favorable. The processes that occur all around us, all generate disorder, and occur all the time.
With a higher amount of energy, more structure, form, and order can be achieved. To lose any of this energy that is holding the system in such a complex, orderly form, will bring with it, a loss of order, in other words, increasing disorder.
Edit: I just realized there were 2 other pages of replies I hadn't yet read.
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