WE HAVE MET THE "HEAT DEATH" OF THE UNIVERSE IN PROGRESS, AND IT IS... US? In the unauthorized collection of essays, The Theory of Everything, by Stephen Hawking, he describes mixing as a process of entropy, and entropy as disorder. He gives the example of 2 types of molecules in a box, separated by a barrier. Remove the barrier and the 2 types of molecules will mix together, increasing their entropy. I wondered about hydrogen and oxygen separated by a barrier. If hydrogen and oxygen do not mix together, they cannot form molecular bonds to result in H2O. Water, that stuff generally favored by life that covers most of the Earth and that makes up most of our bodies, including our brains. If mixing is entropy and entropy is disorder, were they telling me that water is disorder? Then there is the arrow of time. A water glass falls off a table to shatter on the floor. The fact that a glass will do this now and then but will never reform up on the table from which it fell demonstrates the one-way street of time toward entropy. I applied the arrow of time to many processes beneficial to life, from programmed cell death in our bodies to the formation of fertile top soil from decay to harvesting of plants and animals for food. Was entropy really disorder in the sense that people think of that term? All forms are finite, but nature barters with entropy, and life employs it. "Organic cells form, reproduce, and die within complex organisms that are born, reproduce, and die, within species and civilizations that eventually segue into new species and civilizations or simply carry on until they become extinct. All because stars are born, age, die, and are replaced, some former and current stars facilitating habitable planets and life." The quick version is simple and seems irrefutable. "We are star stuff." Star stuff comes from dead stars. The death of stars contributes to the theoretical heat death of the universe expected to run its course trillions upon trillions of years from now. Wouldn't it be fair then to say that the existence of Earth, life, and you and I are aspects of the heat death in progress? Yet I have never found this pointed out. Although it relates to disorder in certain respects, people often become confused about "entropy," the second law of thermodynamics, as disorder. So, it is being redefined in many introductory textbooks for physics and chemistry as energy dispersal thanks to retired chemistry professor, Frank L. Lambert. "Energetically, the second law of thermodynamics favors the formation of the majority of all known complex and ordered chemical compounds from the simpler elements. Thus, contrary to popular opinion, the second law does not dictate the decrease of ordered structure in its predictions, it only demands a "spreading out" of energy in all processes."--Frank L. Lambert, from the website: :2ndlaw.oxy.edu. This all comes as a confirmation of something I have wrestled with for some time as a non-scientist, although science does run in my family. Doing a lot of reading that sometimes left me scratching my head in regard to the traditional definition of the second law, (Such as work by Stephen Hawking.), I discerned many processes that would be defined as entropy that also happen to be necessary for evolution and life. All of these issues are addressed in the title essay in this short book which was rated 5 stars on Goodreads. There are also several poems pondering aspects of science and/or spirituality, often from a Panentheist perspective, one of which appeared in Philosophy Now Magazine. Celebrated physicist and author, Louis Del Monte. "Excellent question. Yes, life is an aspect of the "heat death" in progress." via Twitter. https: //twitter.com/KaneLatranz "...Latranz is a burgeoning Albuquerque author with obvious skill at his craft." Local i.Q. newspaper.
About the Author: Writer and artist, Kane S. Latranz, is the youngest son of a self taught electrical engineer. Latranz's older brother is an award winning professor of computer engineering. Latranz was an Honors English major at UNM and contributed an alternative press review column to the Albuquerque newsweekly, The Alibi, for 4 years. He has authored several books and his writing has appeared in such magazines as Philosophy Now; Weird Tales; Gauntlet; Visionary Tongue, Tales of the Talisman, and Space and Time Magazine, among others.