![]() ![]() ![]() Ī consequence of entropy is that certain processes are irreversible or impossible, aside from the requirement of not violating the conservation of energy, the latter being expressed in the first law of thermodynamics. ![]() Referring to microscopic constitution and structure, in 1862, Clausius interpreted the concept as meaning disgregation. He initially described it as transformation-content, in German Verwandlungsinhalt, and later coined the term entropy from a Greek word for transformation. In 1865, German physicist Rudolf Clausius, one of the leading founders of the field of thermodynamics, defined it as the quotient of an infinitesimal amount of heat to the instantaneous temperature. The thermodynamic concept was referred to by Scottish scientist and engineer Macquorn Rankine in 1850 with the names thermodynamic function and heat-potential. It has found far-ranging applications in chemistry and physics, in biological systems and their relation to life, in cosmology, economics, sociology, weather science, climate change, and information systems including the transmission of information in telecommunication. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory. However, there remains hope that other modes of life capable of maintaining themselves permanently can be found.Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. Attempts to find a scheme for preserving life based on solid structures fail because events such as quantum tunneling recurrently disorganize matter on a very long but fixed time scale, whereas all energy sources slow down progressively in an expanding universe. ![]() The related questions of whether entropy will continue increasing without limit in the future, and whether such increase in the form of Hawking radiation or radiation from positronium might enable life to maintain itself permanently, are considered. An expanding "causal" region is defined in which the entropy, though increasing, tends to fall further and further behind its maximum possible value, thus allowing for the development of order. Some major sources of entropy increase are listed. The question of how the observed evolution of organized structures from initial chaos in the expanding universe can be reconciled with the laws of statistical mechanics is studied, with emphasis on effects of the expansion and gravity. ![]()
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