Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Autumnal Entropy

I read … and re-read an article, from New Scientist, this morning detailing an experiment showing that the more we demand by way of accuracy in our clocks, the greater the contribution to the entropy of the universe. And I thought, “However would I explain this experiment and its result to anyone with my approximate level of scientific knowledge/ignorance?”

                But here’s a rough go. 

                I think it has to do with order/entropy/chaos, and here’s a clarifying (I hope) example. A builder reaches out into the environment for material that exists in a random, chaotic, unplanned state: wood from trees, asphalt from fossil oils, iron deposited in the earth’s crust, etc. and arranges these into an order we call “a barn.” But once created, the barn slowly begins to return to its chaotic origins: the wood rots, the nails oxidize into a ferrous oxide rust, the shingles give up their resilience to the atmosphere, etc. This process is called entropy, the natural return to chaos, disorder.

                To trace the order/entropy/chaos phenomenon in the human body is more interesting, seems to me. A mother’s body provides food, air, water, energy so that under the guidance of genetics, these elements are ordered into a copy of herself. Birth is a milestone in the ordering; it continues through childhood and adolescence until it reaches the maximum order dictated by genetics. From then on, the body begins the process of entropy until the chaos-making process exceeds the ordering process and organs are unable to perform their intended functions anymore. We call it aging and dying. After death, the body … like an old, abandoned barn … continues to return its ancient elements. In effect, its in death and decay that the energy that created the order is given back to the universe, and the elements we ordered and called “barn,” or “body” are returned to the same universe: oxygen, carbon, and the many assorted minerals that were put together to make of us living beings.

                (Here's an interesting thought: some of the carbon molecules that were used to build your body may have previously been part of the bodies of Socrates, Judas Iscariot or John A. MacDonald.)

                Back to watches and clocks. It makes sense that the more complex and intricate we order anything, the greater the consumption of energy. Since all energy is a gift of the universe (mostly of the sun in our earthly case), and since ordering uses up energy and entropy gives it back, the more we demand in that which we order, the larger the deal with the universe to consume and repay energy. And since energy is required to delay and lengthen the process of entropy, the more of it we borrow from our universe, the greater its speed toward its final decay.

                And, most startlingly, the universe along with everything in it is on a trajectory toward its final chaotic state. To prove this in a lab with a filament of a few nanometres thickness is astounding. 

                Perhaps the writers of Genesis 1-4 had an inkling of the astronomical truth of order having been imposed on chaos, since that is what the Old Testament narratives are basically about, with God being the organizer, the creator of order, and the devil the great “entropist,” the devious chaos-maker.

                But don’t worry if your watch or clock was very expensive because it was engineered and intricately manufactured to be dead-on accurate; you and I will long have been returned to “ashes and dust” before the universe finally "leaves the building.” I myself have worn a cheap Citadel watch for at least twenty years.

You’re welcome, universe.