Big Bang, Big Crunch: Decrease in Entropy?

[Owen Densmore]

During a conversation yesterday with Stephen, it occurred to me that
the second law would be violated at the turning point to the big
crunch, right?

I.e. if the universe begins to shrink back to a singularity (well, not
quite if you think the string theory picture is right), wouldn't order
increase in that era?

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net

[Carl Tollander-2]

No.  Well, maybe.  Depends.
See http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/open.questions.html
question #5.

Most of the recent stuff I read (granted, a small part and rather
opinionated portion of the total literature) says the expansion
appears to be speeding up, so I don't think this will be a worry.

carl

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On
Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 10:31 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Big Bang, Big Crunch: Decrease in Entropy?


During a conversation yesterday with Stephen, it occurred to me that
the second law would be violated at the turning point to the big
crunch, right?

I.e. if the universe begins to shrink back to a singularity (well, not
quite if you think the string theory picture is right), wouldn't order
increase in that era?

        -- Owen

Owen Densmore         908 Camino Santander   Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168    Home: 505-988-3787     http://backspaces.net


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