Tidying a room is often described as a small war against the second law of thermodynamics, but a house is not an isolated system and the physics says something narrower and stranger: local order is always available, and always has to be paid for somewhere else
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On the counter in my kitchen there is a bottle of oil and vinegar that has separated into two clean bands, the vinegar underneath, the oil sitting above it, the boundary between them almost suspiciously flat. It looks like the tidiest object in the room.
It is also at maximum entropy. Shake it, and the entropy goes down. Leave it alone, and the second law of thermodynamics carefully, patiently, puts it back into two neat layers.
That example is not mine. It belongs to the physicist Dan Styer, wh
It is also at maximum entropy. Shake it, and the entropy goes down. Leave it alone, and the second law of thermodynamics carefully, patiently, puts it back into two neat layers.
That example is not mine. It belongs to the physicist Dan Styer, wh
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