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Please don't yell at me.

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Nick Thompson

Please don't yell at me.

This is probably an extension of the entropy…uncertainty theme.

I am reading Sean Carroll’s book From Eternity to Here, because I want to know just how much to hate him. He is the guy who has written the two amazing books on EvoDevo that will be the foundation for our fall seminar by that name. He is a player in the EvoDevo literature, so it is not surprising that he knows what he is talking about there, but if he can actually manage to pull off a brilliant summary of cosmology and physics, then I will be free to hate him totally and utterly.

He is humming along talking about the universe since the Big Bang, when he reminds me that the planets in the solar system are in a higher entropy state than the gas cloud from which they formed. (“The Solar system…evolved out of a protostellar cloud that had an even lower entropy; … [FETH, p. 45]”) Really? There are more ways to be a few rocks circulating around a sun than there are to be a cloud? How does that work? How I thought that was going to work was that the constraints of gravity somehow allowed the solar system to export entropy elsewhere while the solar system itself was a temporary non-entropic structure. But now we are back to that question I asked a couple of months ago about how that structure-making force gravity gets to be outside of the entropy calculation.

And THEN I remembered that the salad dressing separates in the jar we keep it in and that, presumably, the separated dressing is a higher entropy state than the mixed dressing, since we have to do work to mix it.

And then I wrote you. I fear a tautology lurking here. Entropy is just what things tend to.

Nick

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: Please don't yell at me.

Nick, I tend to agree.

--Doug

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Entropy is just what things tend to.

============================================================

Russ Abbott

Re: Please don't yell at me.

I agree with you about gravity also. I'm surprised he said that. By the way, there are two Sean Carrolls. The evoDevo guy is a biologist at Wisconsin. The Entropy book guy is a physicist at Caltech.

-- Russ Abbott
______________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-242-USA0 (last character is zero)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
______________________________________

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick, I tend to agree.

--Doug

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Entropy is just what things tend to.

============================================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Russ Abbott

Re: Please don't yell at me.

Here's John Baez's page on gravity and entropy.

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:49 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

I agree with you about gravity also. I'm surprised he said that. By the way, there are two Sean Carrolls. The evoDevo guy is a biologist at Wisconsin. The Entropy book guy is a physicist at Caltech.

-- Russ Abbott
______________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-242-USA0 (last character is zero)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
______________________________________

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick, I tend to agree.

--Doug

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Entropy is just what things tend to.

============================================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: Please don't yell at me.

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> He is humming along talking about the universe since the Big Bang, when he
> reminds me that the planets in the solar system are in a higher entropy
> state than the gas cloud from which they formed. (“The Solar system…evolved
> out of a protostellar cloud that had an even lower entropy; … [FETH, p.
> 45]”) Really? There are more ways to be a few rocks circulating around a sun
> than there are to be a cloud? How does that work? How I thought that was
> going to work was that the constraints of gravity somehow allowed the solar
> system to export entropy elsewhere while the solar system itself was a
> temporary non-entropic structure. But now we are back to that question I
> asked a couple of months ago about how that structure-making force gravity
> gets to be outside of the entropy calculation.

But it is, as always, the entropy of the universe that increases. The
collapse of a cloud into a planet, or into a star for that matter,
releases a lot of heat. There are more ways to be a cloud than a
rock, but becoming a rock liberates a lot of radiation and there are
lots and lots of ways to be a cloud of photons radiating into space.

-- rec --

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Please don't yell at me.

Ok. But the more I think about this the more I think that the idea that
"entropy increases" has less and less to do with any of the things we
actually talk about in FRIAM.

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 1:16 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please don't yell at me.

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> He is humming along talking about the universe since the Big Bang,
> when he reminds me that the planets in the solar system are in a
> higher entropy state than the gas cloud from which they formed. (The
> Solar systemevolved out of a protostellar cloud that had an even lower
entropy; [FETH, p.
> 45]) Really? There are more ways to be a few rocks circulating around
> a sun than there are to be a cloud? How does that work? How I thought
> that was going to work was that the constraints of gravity somehow
> allowed the solar system to export entropy elsewhere while the solar
> system itself was a temporary non-entropic structure. But now we are
> back to that question I asked a couple of months ago about how that
> structure-making force gravity gets to be outside of the entropy
calculation.

But it is, as always, the entropy of the universe that increases. The
collapse of a cloud into a planet, or into a star for that matter,
releases a lot of heat. There are more ways to be a cloud than a
rock, but becoming a rock liberates a lot of radiation and there are lots
and lots of ways to be a cloud of photons radiating into space.

-- rec --

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Please don't yell at me.

In reply to this post by Russ Abbott

“by the way”! “By the WAAAAY”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I paid 26 bucks for a book by the wrong Sean Carroll. I think it even showed up in “other books by Sean Carroll” in Amazon. Not “other books by people named Sean Carroll.”

Well, at least I don’t have to hate the evodevo Sean Carroll.

Thank you, Russ. I was already conceiving of a book review titled something like, A Bridge Too Far, about how Wisconsin Sean Carroll should confine himself to writing books he knows something about.

nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 12:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please don't yell at me.

I agree with you about gravity also. I'm surprised he said that. By the way, there are two Sean Carrolls. The evoDevo guy is a biologist at Wisconsin. The Entropy book guy is a physicist at Caltech.

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick, I tend to agree.

--Doug

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Entropy is just what things tend to.

============================================================

Russ Abbott

Re: Please don't yell at me.

Amazon always does that. You have to be careful.

-- Russ

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

“by the way”! “By the WAAAAY”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I paid 26 bucks for a book by the wrong Sean Carroll. I think it even showed up in “other books by Sean Carroll” in Amazon. Not “other books by people named Sean Carroll.”

Well, at least I don’t have to hate the evodevo Sean Carroll.

Thank you, Russ. I was already conceiving of a book review titled something like, A Bridge Too Far, about how Wisconsin Sean Carroll should confine himself to writing books he knows something about.

nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 12:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please don't yell at me.

I agree with you about gravity also. I'm surprised he said that. By the way, there are two Sean Carrolls. The evoDevo guy is a biologist at Wisconsin. The Entropy book guy is a physicist at Caltech.

-- Russ Abbott
______________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Google voice: 424-242-USA0 (last character is zero)
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
______________________________________

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick, I tend to agree.

--Doug
On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Entropy is just what things tend to.

============================================================

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org