Is increase in entropy synonymous with the flow of time?

[marksesl]

Hello, I was just reading how the second law of thermodynamic is the only principle of physics that is irreversible, and that fact appears to have a correlation with how we view time and how time can only move in one direction, being the same as the flow of entropy. So, are entropy and time really synonymous?
I was doing a thought experiment to try to settle the issue and envisioned our universe with entropy sped up at twice the rate. Clearly, if entropy was to increase at twice the rate, things would age twice as fast, plants would grow at twice the rate and live for only half as long. For most anything, it would appear, as though time itself had been sped up. But, then I thought about the spin of the Earth. For time to run at twice the speed, then naturally the Earth would have to rotate at twice the speed, but I don't see how an increase in the rate of entropy could have any effect on the speed of the rotation of the Earth, or its period of revolution around the sun. So, now I'm thinking entropy and time are not the same after all. My question is simply: Would a doubling in the rate of the universe's entropy cause the rotation and revolution of the Earth to become twice as fast?

 

[Studiot]

Be aware that thermodynamic irreversibility refers to spontaneous processes.

The Second law dows not refer to anything that cannot be reversed. It just describes the 'cost' of doing so.

 

[marksesl]

But, I would think not at the universal scale. The question remains, would a doubling of the entropy rate result in the Earth spinning twice as fast? If that is not the case, I believe time and entropy cannot be considered synonymous.

 

[mikeph]

They are certainly not synonymous.

 

[marksesl]

Ok, but you can't just claim something. The argument that since the second law of thermodynamics is irreversible, thus it may not just require an arrow of time, but is responsible for the arrow of time makes a lot of sense to many people. Entropy and time appear to be closely connected. I'm still trying to sort it out by trying to get an answer to my question. Is there any mechanism by which an increase in the rate of universal entropy would cause the Earth to spin twice as fast?

 

[Studiot]

Ok, but you can't just claim something.

You are the one making the proposition (claim) and as such you must define your terms.

The term 'entropy rate' has no formal meaning in thermodynamics so you need to define what you mean before you can make claims about it.

 

[mikeph]

You can't just double the entropy and "see what happens". That's the wrong way around. Entropy is a property of the state of a system. If you change the state, then you may get a change in entropy. To suggest that you're able to change entropy and then see what happens to the state is meaningless.

Can you describe this thought experiment in a way that it could be hypothetically viable?

 

[marksesl]

Entropy can be measured as Joules per Kelvin I believe, so it would appear it can be gauged. The system I’m speaking of here is the universe itself and the rate of entropy in it. There must be some rate that entropy transpires in the universe. The universe is expanding and running down, and the time at which it will reach heath death can be predicted. If the present rate of entropy were 1X Joules/Kelvin and tomorrow we woke up to a universe where it is 2X Joules/Kelvin, then would that result in 12.5 hour days / or require an acceleration of all motion? If the system must change first and that change requires everything move at twice its current speed, such as the spin of the earth, for entropy to double in rate, then what’s the difference? That would just prove that entropy and time are inexorably linked and really just two words for the same thing.

 

[Studiot]

Entropy can be measured as Joules per Kelvin I believe, so it would appear it can be gauged. The system I’m speaking of here is the universe itself and the rate of entropy in it. There must be some rate that entropy transpires in the universe. The universe is expanding and running down, and the time at which it will reach heath death can be predicted. If the present rate of entropy were 1X Joules/Kelvin and tomorrow we woke up to a universe where it is 2X Joules/Kelvin, then would that result in 12.5 hour days / or require an acceleration of all motion? If the system must change first and that change requires everything move at twice its current speed, such as the spin of the earth, for entropy to double in rate, then what’s the difference? That would just prove that entropy and time are inexorably linked and really just two words for the same thing.

rate of entropy

The above is not a definition of what you mean by the 'rate of entropy'

Since you will not define what you mean how can the discussion proceed further?

 

[marksesl]

How can Joules per Kelvin not be considered a rate, just like miles per gallon? Let's call the rate the time it will take the universe to reach its half-life. If the half-life of the universe were to be shortened by half because the dissociation of order to disorder became twice as fast, would that mean all motion in the universe had to have doubled, such as the spin of the earth?

 

[mikeph]

I don't know how many different ways I can answer no.

I did not say entropy cannot be gauged, I said it cannot be changed by some magical lever.
Although how would you propose gauging it for a universe?
Just because we define a quantity with known units, it doesn't mean it can be measured.
How can entropy have a half-life? What makes you think it decreases exponentially with time?
By what possible mechanism can the Earth's rotation instantaneously double?

 

[marksesl]

Joules / Kelvin is a rate, miles / per gallon is a rate. I’m not measuring anything. I’m speaking of the rate of change in something. That’s very straight forward. The universe has to have some rate of entropy, and how can it not have a half-life if its energy is running down? Whether one has a magical lever or not, theoretically if you did, and could push that lever forward to twice the rate of its present rate of entropy, would everything in the universe have to speed up? It’s a simple question and a simple concept.
Saying no without an explanation is no answer. “By what possible mechanism can the Earth's rotation instantaneously double?” How is that an answer? If time were to double then the rotation would have to double; yes, of course. If entropy were to double would the result be the same?
You cannot claim that entropy and time are not the same just by saying No. That’s tautology. If you know anything about physics then you should consider the question and try answering it intelligently as to why or why not motion would double -- according to laws of physics.

 

[Studiot]

OK that's fine now we understand what you mean by a rate we can find your source of difficulty.

By 'rate of entropy' you actually mean the quantity itself, since entropy is defined as energy per degree.

The universe has to have some rate of entropy, and how can it not have a half-life if its energy is running down?

So to translate this sentence you mean

'The universe has to have some particular value of entropy, and how can it not have a half-life if its energy is running down?'

As far as I know there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the energy of the universe is running down.
Thermodynamically the universe is either an infinite or a isolated system, either way it is not suffering diminution of its energy.
However much you remove from infinity still leaves you with infinity.
If, on the other hand the universe is finite it is an isolated system since it incorporates all there is. The First Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the energy of an isolated system is constant.

 

[mikeph]

You haven't any evidence that universe's energy is decreasing, nor that this would imply the universe's entropy must decay exponentially, which allows for a half-life to be defined. You can't talk about "theoretically pushing the lever forward" because such a statement doesn't make any sense in that form. A thought experiment still has to be explainable.

You are describing something that doesn't make sense, and when I ask you to elaborate, you tell me it's not a counterargument. There is no counterargument if you cannot present your argument clearly. I think I'll let someone else continue this struggle, but for the record, as soon as you start insulting someone's intelligence, their motivation to help you drops quite suddenly.

 

[marksesl]

Beginning with the Big Bang, there has been a progression from order to disorder (net disorder), which is called entropy. If that was X Joules/Kelvin, what would have happed if it had been 2X Joules/Kelvin? Would everything now be moving twice as fast? If so, then entropy must be considered no different than time itself. So, would all motion be moving at twice the current velocity?

Though total energy in the universe cannot decline; entropy is how much of that energy is available for doing work. The amount of available energy is what is declining. So once the universe is homogenous, there well be no more energy available to do any work, unless the universe can somehow reverse entropy (sometimes called sentropy). Entropy would be at maximum and the universe, without some means of reversing entropy, will be dead. Since the actual state of complete maximum entropy is probably a limit approaching ?? (whatever maximum is defined as), it would probably be more appropriate to speak of the longevity of the universe in terms of half-life, but that is not important.

 

[Naty1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that is the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work.

Many implications...you can envision some from the above article.

As most entropy in our universe is hidden within black holes, your hypothesis would seem
to imply twice the proportion of black holes in our universe...in addtion it would seem our sun might be twice as hot and we would not even be here.

 

[marksesl]

Yes, but twice as hot in a universe that uses energy twice as fast, so what's the difference? If time was sped up twice as much, you would expect twice the number of black holes. If the sun burnt at twice the rate, it would live half as long, just as you’d expect if time were to speed up twice as fast. So what is one difference between the rate of entropy speeding up and time speeding up? Nothing it appears. The spin of the Earth had to come from some energy input to push it at some time in the past, so if the rate of entropy had been twice as much during the Big Bang, it and everything would be moving twice as fast. Yes? The point is, is that entropy only goes in one direction (universally speaking) and so does time. Is that just coincidence? Thus, it appears that time is emergent from entropy.

 

[nitsuj]

Thus, it appears that time is emergent from entropy.

What does that mean?

Time doesn't have a direction anymore than length does.

Unless you retort that length "goes forward" too. :tongue2:

That is saying spacetime is isotropic. There is no flow to it.

This is the "stage" that entropy plays out on.

Consider what it is you mean with the term time, specifically the assumption that time is what "flows.

 

[marksesl]

Can you remember tomorrow or change yesterday? Obviously time has direction.

"This is the "stage" that entropy plays out on." You can't just claim things; you must support your claim with some clear reasoning. How can you know that?

If anything is not isotropic it would be entropy, not time. And, that fact may be the only thing that would distinguish entropy from time.

 

[jbriggs444]

I can burn a log on a fire.
I can let a log rot.

I can look at my watch and see that one process takes longer than the other.

It seems clear that the rate of increase of entropy is not constant with respect to what we call time.

 

[marksesl]

I’m glad to see an intelligent and analytical response. I've been thinking the same thing; there are many such instances that one could bring up. I was even thinking about someone born with progeria, the disease that makes people age many times the normal rate, and certainly they don't experience time speeding up. But, one must consider just how symmetrical time and entropy are though. Time began with the Big Bang and started ticking. Entropy started with the Big Bang and started increasing. If one were to stop one, the other, I believe, would have to stop. Imagine if all energy flow just stopped dead in its tracks, wouldn’t time itself have to stop. Everything would just be frozen. I’m not saying for sure they are the same, but it’s something to consider and I’m not the first by any means. It’s an old hypotheses. to get back to your point, perhaps the overwhelming flow of energy and entropy subsumes minor local differences or even reversals such as plants growing. Remember that all matter and everything we can see or could touch in the universe constitutes only a very small percentage of the universe. It’s mostly dark matter, and dark energy. Small local retardations of entropy may have no effect on the overall tendency of entropy. If we are being swept along in a river, a few eddies and whirlpools wouldn’t make any difference to the momentum of the river in general. Show be something that’s different about time and entropy in how they would affect the universe if sped up, slowed down, or stopped. I’m all ears. I’m writing a book and want the truth about this issue.

 

[jbriggs444]

If we grant your hypothetical -- if everything were to stop in its tracks, then no possible experiment could detect this.

That means that your speculation is not scientific and is not appropriate for this forum.

 

[Studiot]

I’m glad to see an intelligent and analytical response.

Well I'm sorry to see such a rude response.

You totally ignored my analytical response set forth in my post #13, where I was the only one trying to help you sort out some misconceptions, rather than just mock.

You have another misconception here

entropy is how much of that energy is available for doing work.

You have clearly come across a number of populist words and phrases about technical matters.

You would do well to understand them before trying to preach to the technical community, up to and including professors of physics.

This statement, as do all statements of work in the first law, refers to external work ie work transferred across a system boundary, not internal work.
Further and more telling: it refers to energy that is not available, rather than energy that is available.

 

[nitsuj]

Can you remember tomorrow or change yesterday? Obviously time has direction.

"This is the "stage" that entropy plays out on." You can't just claim things; you must support your claim with some clear reasoning. How can you know that?

If anything is not isotropic it would be entropy, not time. And, that fact may be the only thing that would distinguish entropy from time.

I'd suggest learning about SR and how it defines time/length.

You may see too, that to suggest time having a direction that is causally connected to entropy laughable.

It's no wonder you're confused with regard to similarities between the clock on a wall/calendar, spacetime & entropy.

Remove time from you musings over entropy, 'cause you misunderstand the term.

Yesterday/tomorrow has everything to do with causation and little to nothing to do with time.

I know the definition of time/length precedes their use in observing entropy. that is so obvious logically...I'm leaving this discussion.

Of course all that said, let's ignore semantics. Sure "flow of time" is synonymous with "increase in entropy". The quotes are the qualifiers...which are required since there is no flow to time.

There is a flow to causation, what more do you expect?

 

[marksesl]

“If we grant your hypothetical -- if everything were to stop in its tracks, then no possible experiment could detect this. That means that your speculation is not scientific and is not appropriate for this forum”

I see jbriggs444 has abandoned any further attempt at an intelligent response. If entropy just stopped, would it have the same effect as if time stopped (or causality if you like) is a perfectly valid question. If you’d put as much energy into answering the question as you do into ranting, then maybe we could get somewhere.
…………………………………………………..
And as far a Studiot is concerned, here is his so called analytical response:

“OK that's fine now we understand what you mean by a rate we can find your source of difficulty. By 'rate of entropy' you actually mean the quantity itself, since entropy is defined as energy per degree.”

NO, how can a quantity be a rate? hehe. A rate refers to something that changes, i.e., Entropy increases as matter and energy degrade to an ultimate state of uniformity. Duh…

The universe has to have some rate of entropy, and how can it not have a half-life if its energy is running down? So to translate this sentence you mean 'The universe has to have some particular value of entropy, and how can it not have a half-life if its energy is running down?' “As far as I know there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the energy of the universe is running down.”

If you don’t think that entropy meant the energy of the universe is running down, then back to Physics 101. A battery has the same amount of energy after it runs down, but it’s no longer available, The available energy is what running down. Does that really need to be spelled out here?

“Thermodynamically the universe is either an infinite or a isolated system, either way it is not suffering diminution of its energy.”

We are talking about entropy, or do you have a problem with short term memory? When talking about entropy we are discussing available energy, of course. That’s what is running down.

However much you remove from infinity still leaves you with infinity. If, on the other hand the universe is finite it is an isolated system since it incorporates all there is. The First Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the energy of an isolated system is constant.”


But, may not all be useful. The subject here is entropy! Please read the first post.

“You would do well to understand them before trying to preach to the technical community, up to and including professors of physics.”

No professors have been replying to me; that’s for sure. Professors are professional, polite, and never arrogant, and would never give an answer to a lengthy question with just a “No.”

“Further and more telling: it refers to energy that is not available, rather than energy that is available.”

That’s about as important as me pointing out you spelled system "sytem" above. No professor would ever nitpick over that just to try to make the person asking the questing look bad. Pretending that matters is a logical fallacy, and not appreciated on this forum.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Can you remember tomorrow or change yesterday? Obviously time has direction.

"This is the "stage" that entropy plays out on." You can't just claim things; you must support your claim with some clear reasoning. How can you know that?

If anything is not isotropic it would be entropy, not time. And, that fact may be the only thing that would distinguish entropy from time.
“I'd suggest learning about SR and how it defines time/length.
You may see too, that to suggest time having a direction that is causally connected to entropy laughable.”

Oh really, here are mentioned two books on the subject:

“While I don’t plan on giving a complete rundown of every sentence in my new Symmetry book every now and again, I figured I’d run some ideas by you and see if you have any follow-up questions. At the moment, I’m working on Chapter 2, with the working title, “Does Entropy Increase with Time or does it Make Time?”
Apropos of this, I’ve spent the weekend reading fellow Pennsbury High School alum and Dutton author Sean Carroll’s book, “From Eternity to Here,” who addresses this very question is a fair amount of detail. It’s a very well-reasoned book and has a very good tone,”

“Remove time from you musings over entropy, 'cause you misunderstand the term. Yesterday/tomorrow has everything to do with causation and little to nothing to do with time.”

Man have you missed the point. You better go back and read the original message. Newton’s laws of motion can describe causality in time moving both forwards or backwards. Causality doesn’t care what direction time goes in, only the second law of thermodynamics requires an arrow of time. That’s the whole point to all of this, what causes what? Entropy says a glass can shatter, but not reform itself. CAUSALITY can only go in one direction. So, it is entropy that gives time its direction. Time is emergent from entropy.

“I know the definition of time/length precedes their use in observing entropy. that is so obvious logically...I'm leaving this discussion.”

If you can’t say anything more intelligent than what you have been saying so far, then that’s for the best.

“Of course all that said, let's ignore semantics. Sure "flow of time" is synonymous with "increase in entropy". The quotes are the qualifiers...which are required since there is no flow to time. There is a flow to causation, what more do you expect?”

Causation can flow in either direction. Why can’t you get the point? ONLY the second law requires an arrow of time. Causality only goes in one directly, and that direction is determined by one and only one thing – entropy.

The following is taken from the book by William Sidis, who had the highest I.Q. ever recorded -- 300. So, don’t you be telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about:

“… if we take the most ordinary events of the real universe and attempt to find out what is the corresponding events in the reverse universe, something strange will at once impress us about the reverse universe. Take this, for example: a ball rolls down a staircase, bounces a little at the bottom, and finally stops. In the reverse universe the initial condition is the ball at the bottom, on a floor near, the foot of a staircase. The heat energy in the floor collects at one point underneath the ball, so as to push the ball suddenly upward. Each time that the ball falls back to the floor this process is repeated, until finally the floor throws the ball on to the first stair. The stairs, each in turn, throw the ball in a similar manner up the staircase, till finally the ball stops at the top. The molecular vibrations in the ball, floor, and staircase, had previously been so arranged that concentration of energy would happen at a particular spot and time, while the ball so moved that it just happened to be at those spots exactly in time.
So it will be with the occurrences corresponding in the reverse universe to almost any common occurrence in the physical world of our experience. Everything seems to be perfectly explicable in terms of physical laws, but at the same time the combinations of motions seem to have something utterly strange about them. Hence there is some point of difference between the real universe and the reverse universe, and hence there must be some property of the real universe that is irreversible.
This irreversible property is found in what is called the second law of thermodynamics. This, taken in its most general aspect, amounts to this: that the energy of the universe is constantly running down to one common level.”

If you would all stop whining and ranting and just answer the questions I ask, it would same everyone a lot of time, and serve your readers better. The problem is that none of you are professors of Physics. Any professor would know the question of does time emerge from entropy is a perfectly valid one.

 

[nitsuj]

Causation can flow in either direction. ONLY the second law requires an arrow of time. Causality only goes in one directly, and that direction is determined by one and only one thing – entropy.

this is clearly contradictory, and suggests causation is a consequence of entropy.

And no causality clearly is directional. Sometimes, you got to remember that calculation is merely a tool. You need to use your mind too. And think hey, cause precedes effect...always.


With all due respect and in honesty, there is a "flow" to causation, consider that as the "direction of time".

Entropy has no direct connection to spacetime.

 

[Khashishi]

There's a difference between talking about the "arrow of time" and time itself. Time is just a dimension with similarities and differences to a direction in space. The arrow of time is our conscious perception of time flowing in one direction. Entropy is invoked as an explanation for the arrow of time but not of time itself.

Ok, now suppose entropy did increase faster (with respect to atomic clocks based on some frequency of oscillation of some crystal). Entropy isn't some single value which you can just adjust for the whole universe. Every system and subsystem has its own value of entropy, and entropy itself is a subjective value, so it's not really possible to answer the question.

Would Earth spin faster? Well, the Earth's angular momentum came from the angular momentum in some vortex of swirling dust as the Earth formed. I guess the initial state of the solar system had some various patches of dust moving in random directions. If you increase the entropy, I suppose you might have more swirls or faster swirls. You might get more planets with smaller mass and smaller rotation or higher rotation. Who knows? It's too undefined.

 

[chill_factor]

This is an interesting question. How much entropy is there in the universe? Let's call it S. Now we must have some value dS/dt = X. You're asking for what happens if dS/dt = 2X.

Now keep this in mind: normal matter has little entropy compared to event horizons. These event horizons could be black hole event horizons but any event horizon would do. There is an event horizon in the universe that is called the cosmological event horizon, which exists because somethings are so far away that light emitted today from their current position cannot reach us at t = ∞ due to the expansion of space.

The entropy of the observable universe is almost entirely contained in the blackbody radiation in the CMB and the cosmological event horizon and dS/dt is caused almost entirely by the expansion of the cosmological event horizon's surface area. Regular matter contributes almost nothing to the entropy. so I think dS/dt = 2X would not affect us at all.

 

[TGlad]

Is increase in entropy synonymous with the flow of time?

Yes. There are two separate concepts here, the dimension of time which the laws of physics are with respect to. And the direction of time which the laws of physics don't define since they are time symmetric.

Which leaves two questions:
1. why is there a difference between the two directions along the time dimension?
Because we are 'on a hill' where entropy is increasing, so things don't act the same in the two time directions.

2. why does time appear to flow forwards?
<opinion>
Because any reasonably constructed creature is able to store information about the environment in the low entropy direction because it is massively less information than the present, i.e. memories. And such a creature would use rules to approximate the environment in the high entropy direction (which is too much information to store), i.e. predictions of the future. i.e. time flow is a sensation of living creatures (phenomenological), rather than a rule of physics.

 

[Gard-on]

Recently NASA has scientists that are talking about warp speed - something a few years ago was only science fiction in Star Trek. Energy is required and thus there would seemingly be a tremendous increase in entropy. Let me quote from GCN: "According to NASA scientists, it might be possible to break the laws of special relativity with a ship shaped like a sphere that could be placed between two regions of space-time, with one expanding and one contracting. This requires matter with special properties and could break Einstein's law because the ship isn't actually moving faster than light; space itself is being moved, and the ship is simply falling through the hole — called a wormhole — it created.
That much had been worked out as early as 1994 by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. However, in addition to the special matter, his plan also required energy equivalent to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter."
In this case, if it can be done, it would seem that there would be very little flow; thus, the answer would be that they could not reasonably be synonymous. It was entropic spiral and the degradation of the Earth thread that originally brought me to this website, since I had just re-read the new book Entropic Spiral is Evolution's Flush. I will not go into the details of the book since it appears it may be against one of the rules and I would like to continue writing here. You can find the book using a search engine and the book, not extremely technical, references several well-documented books which can help with this subject.
Using the input from NASA it appears that using the wormhole theory much energy could be expended with the possibility of little entropy resulting. This does not appear to contradict what I have been reading; however, the entropy "flow" does appear to be increasing in certain areas - especially genetic entropy.

 

[ModusPwnd]

I like thinking about time with an entropy perspective. In some ways its more intuitive than the usual relativistic way of looking at it. Clocks are devices which increase in entropy in a 'regular' fashion, with regular being defined as having constant ratios with other 'clocks'. The beginning of the universe has the lowest entropy possible, and thus was the earliest time possible. The macrostate of the small early universe has very, very few microstates associated with it. The end game of a heat death is a macrostate with the most possible microstates associated with it, this would be the end of time. If the universe is a closed system then both the early universe and late universe are accessible microstates and the entropy is constant, but any sub-system considered would not necessarily be like that.

 

[JustinRyan]

Hypothetically speaking...if doubling the "rate" of entropy caused time to speed up, then as we measure rates with respect to time, there would be no change would there?

I am not sure I can back this statement up with sound arguments, but I think time is a quantity/entity that does not require entropy for rate or direction. Rather the opposite. Entropy cannot increase (or decrease) without the time dimension to exist within.