Second Law of Thermodynamics As It Relates To Evolution

The laws of thermodynamics are simple. The first law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it is only converted from one form to another. The second law of thermodynamics is also fairly simple, but before I say what it means, I’ll say what people have tried to convince me it means.
I’ve been told that the second law of thermodynamics says that everything is heading towards disorder. Some people add that only closed systems are headed towards disorder and that order can come about through the addition of energy. Other people claim that the second law of thermodynamics only came about after the eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. The conclusion that I keep hearing from this is that the second law of thermodynamics states that evolution is impossible because evolutions talks about things going from a low level of order to a higher one.
As always, one should be careful regarding claims expanding a scientific principal beyond that which it was intended. The fact that it is the second law of thermodynamics suggests that we should think carefully prior to trying to apply this information to things outside the realm of thermodynamics. A simple analogy can illustrate the dangers of making such an extention of scientific laws without though. I was told that one reason a lot of stuents have trouble understanding quantum physics is because it’s like putting a bunch of things in a box, walking away with it and having half the items staying on the table. From this, one can conclude that public transportation is a meaningless affair because boarding the bus doesn’t neccisarily mean that you’ll travel with the bus. You may be left at the bus stop despite being completely contained within the vehicle prior to departure.
In simple, easy to understand terms, the second law of thermodynamics states that in any conversion of energy, some energy is converted into multiple forms. One conclusion of this is that no thermodynamic system can be 100% efficient because some of the energy converted is in a form other than the objective output form. The various other forms that energy is converted into are often more difficult to work with. If you want to use the term entropy in your definition of the second law of thermodynamics, that’s fine as long as you have a firm understanding of what is entropy and what states are considered ordered and disordered.
Which of the three would be considered to have the highest level of order? A flat plane, a flat plane with a giant stone pillar in the middle or a mountain range with continously varying slopes and elevations? Instinctually, one might see the mountain range as being disordered, the flat plane as being ordered and be puzzled as to where to rank the plane with the pillar. If we approach this from the common misconception of the second law of thermodynamics, which says that we get more entropy with each change, which is considered more organized? I can start chipping away at the pillar or the mountains, get energy out as pieces fall down and then I have the flat even plane. As the flat surface is the end result of when so many energy conversions are performed that no more work can be done, it therefore must be the most disorganized and random state. Although by knocking down the mountain, we’ve gone from what is viewed as disorder to what is viewed as order. Another quick analogy, if I were to apply this to a herd of elephants, as they travel, they’ll become less orderly and I’ll have a random distribution of elephants. Herd mentality is therefore contridictory to the second law of thermodynamics and doesn’t exist. Because of the confusion that can arrise, a good scientific understanding of the terminology is needed prior to attempting to draw conclusions.
If the second law of thermodynamics did not exist prior to the eating of the fruit from the tree of life, Adam could have set a ball bouncing and it wouldn’t have stopped because energy is retained within the system and is never converted to other forms. The ball would also be bouncing silently and background audio from any intended sound would exist indefinately causing noise levels to rise indefinately due to the motions not being converted into heat. Friction would also be completely non-existant because it converts energy into heat. This poses serious problems for the paradise of the Garden of Eden, turning it into more of a scifi b movie horror scenario.
So, if I were to try to apply this concept to biology, does it say that I cannot produce more advanced creatures? It does say that creatures need to take in more input energy than the theoretical minimum required output energy that they expend and the second law of thermodynamics makes no further comments.

Space Colonization For Idiots, By Idiots

When europeans first started exploring the americas, the ships were not realy suited for transatlantic travel, there was a strong risk of getting lost, we had no measure of longtitude. There was however a promise of a new land with new riches and whoever got there first was going to control it. We know there’s stuff out there in space for us. It’s almost like the vast oceans that the europeans faced. Our capacity to travel through space is very limited, there’s all sorts of things that could happen to us along the way. For a long time, we tested our sea faring technology in coastal waters where getting too far away didn’t mean that all hope was lost. We can see the moon, we can see mars. Our robotic scouts have gone to visit, and reported back to us. We now know what’s there and what isn’t.
On the subject of what isn’t there, what’s with people wanting to have an orbital colony. There isn’t anything there. We’d be bringing everything with us and then it would need to contiously be supplied. It makes about as much sense as the europeans stopping to build a giant mid atlantic island to further their colonization of the americas. The resources to build aren’t present and it’ll just be an outpost in the middle of nowhere that needs to contiously be maintained and is also subject to more hazards than the americas. Building facilities in space has some logic to it, a permant settlement though exposes us to hazards that need to be dealt with indefinately and overall just doesn’t make sense to me. The moon provides some limited temperature regulation and there’s matter there, which can be used to make things to sustain a colony. Mars does an even better job at temperature regulation. We can also dig into these bodies and use them for debris protection. Forget the large bodies, any random small rock will have merits that beats a middle of nowhere colony.
I suppose I’ll conclude by saying, we still haven’t built the large floating mid-atlantic island, but we do have large coastal construction facilities for building large floating structures. There just isn’t anything there motivating people to settle.

Angry, Bitter, and Unemployed

I went to bed in the middle of drafting yet another cover letter. Going over old memories and trying to put my qualifications in words.
I almost got a perfect score in one of my university classes. The only thing was, I had a dispute over sign conventions with the TA. I drew my vector in one direction because I knew that it should go there and expressed my numerical answer as a positive in the direction indicated. This was the opposite of the answer key, the vector pointed the other way and had a negative quantity indicating that it should really go in the other direction. I was right and pleaded my case only to be told that I needed to think about the problem rather than simply relying on my calculator to get the right answer. I did think about the problem, which is why I drew my vector in the correct direction. As for relying on my calculator, after sitting through so many reviews I decided that I won’t be needing it on the test, the math was trivial. I never took it out. Despite all this, my second appeal failed and I heard the same reply again, think about the question, don’t rely on your calculator. All the other work I did in the course was dead on.
There was another time where I had a very simple exam. It was electronics for non-electrical engineers. Having completed an electronics course in highschool and played around with several circuits of my own design it was a trivial course for me. I walked into the test and pretty much walked out in the first five minutes since the course was geared towards people with little to no electronics knowledge. After a brief discussion with the TA, he felt convinced that I was indeed deserving of a perfect score and not a trip to the dean’s office.
I also had three courses where my entire set of notes could be written on the back of a business card. One was chemistry, which covered a bit less than my highschool IB class but had one equation that I hadn’t already familiarized myself with. The two were introduction to economics and engineering economics. From all my observations, those two subjects are either ones you understand right away or are simply doomed to struggle with.
There was also a time when we needed a high voltage power supply to do some smart materials testing. Before the study of where can we find such an item and how long will it take to get it concluded, I tossed one together with the parts I had around. Then became absolutely terrified that I was going to give it away to a group that probably won’t have anyone who could correctly bias a transistor.
In my graduating class of aerospace engineers, we had people who could size a control surface, and pick an actuator, people who could design an appropriate structure for the control surface, actuator and air frame, and people who could pick an actuator, and design the control system. I was probably the only guy who could size the control surface, pick an actuator, design the supporting structure, design the control system, and code the autopilot.
For a lot of reasons, many of my friends consider me the brightest guy they know. Despite all this though, I’m the one who’s been unemployed for almost a year. I’m getting sick of writing coverletters and revising resumes, specially with all this talk about the labour shortage, and how this is a boom town. We desperately need people to help stock shelves, wash dishes and get things from point a to point b. I can’t seem to get a job that requires more than simply being old enough to work.