Tending Toward Disorder

When it comes to cleaning the kitchen, I never seem to meet expectations.  After all, If the universe is constantly fighting against me to achieve a more disordered state, who am I to get in the way?

That statement, “Systems tend toward disorder,” permeates the popular understanding of physics, but this generalization limits us from developing deeper insight into how the universe works.  Also, it demonstrates an unfortunate disconnect between the language scientists use, and the language everyone else uses.  I’d like to give you a new generalization that says the same thing, but in a more accurate and thought-provoking way.

What is a ‘System’?

In physics, a ‘system’ refers to any testing environment.  If our discussion is based on a sample of shredded coconut, our system might be a petri dish.  

And if we’re exploring the water cycle, our system might be the whole Earth.

Even the universe itself can be a system, if our topic covers that scale.

For the purposes of this discussion, our system will be my kitchen.

What is ‘disorder’?

‘Disorder’ also means something different to scientists, than it does to other people.  Disorder refers to the energy in a system being more distributed among its available microstates.  I know, I know… ‘microstates’?  Whaaaat?  All this means is that energy likes to be as distributed as possible – and when energy is more distributed, that represents more ‘disorder’.

Understanding the Disorder of my Kitchen

So yes, my kitchen’s disorder is increasing as it goes from clean to messy.  Energy is being used to move things around, and the contents of the kitchen are becoming more distributed among the available space. 

However, if we think of ‘disorder’ as a tendency for energy to be distributed throughout the kitchen, we can realize that there are other ways the kitchen’s disorder can increase.  A hot cup of coffee contributes to the disorder of the kitchen by dispersing energy into it.  A pint of ice cream increases the disorder of the kitchen by taking in energy.  I even increase the disorder by drinking water and using it to drive my biological processes. 

Conclusion

The phrase “The universe tends toward disorder” means something different depending on who you’re talking to.  Instead, use the phrase “The energy in the universe tends to be distributed.”  That understanding can take you from the eventual cooling of the Earth’s core, to our Sun eventually becoming a hunk of cold iron in space, to the universe becoming a boneyard full of the cold iron husks of former stars.  Scientists call this the “Heat Death of the Universe”!

Let’s talk about food processing. It seems the best way for us to keep the heat death of the universe at bay is to not unnecessarily distribute energy.  So, which takes more energy to produce, a chicken strip or a chicken nugget?  Chicken nuggets are made by mincing bits of chicken together into a slurry and squirting them into a nugget shape. It involves more specialized equipment, more energy, and ultimately more stuff.  I like chicken nuggets as much as the next person, but I can‘t help but think about how every nugget made for me sped up our march toward the heat death of the universe.