I have a 6th grader’s understanding of physics (which I’m trying to remedy, don’t worry). Earlier today I was idly pondering electricity and plants and the sun and energy, and a thought crossed my mind… where did it all come from?
Is it all matter decaying into heat? Bonded/structured/ordered particles wanting to separate from other particles in various ways, and in so doing, causing all sorts of inefficiencies which in turn create this smorgasbord of a world? Are we the Big Bang’s dying remnants?
Can a stable arrangement of matter (does such a thing even exist?) produce energy by itself? Is any new energy even being created, or are we just transforming and siphoning off what’s left, slowly but surely?
Is any of this related to “entropy” and “heat death”?
(I wasn’t joking about the 6th grade thing… do forgive my ignorance)
You’re thinking too hard about it. Repeat after me:
Energy is not created or destroyed; it is only transferred. When something has energy - a gallon of gasoline, for example - the energy came from something else. And it goes somewhere else after it is burned. The energy never disappears - it is transferred.
While it is true “energy is energy,” energy can exist in multiple *forms *(chemical, potential, electrical, kinetic, etc.).
Not all energy has equal value. 1 joule of electrical energy, for example, has more value than 1 joule of gasoline energy, which has more value than 1 joule of thermal energy.
You can’t transfer energy from one form to another without a) some of it going into heat energy or b) more equally distributing the heat energy from a hotter area to a cooler area. This is where chaos and entropy comes in.
Don’t let the title throw you - a good part of the book is dedicated to examining what entropy (you call it chaos :p) has to do with energy - how the universe began, energy-wise, and where the universe will ultimately end up (heat death? Collapse? Other?)
It’s a bit too dense to be a breezy summer read, but a curious layman (among whom I count myself) will enjoy it.
This sounds like a great book. Until you read that, here’s my inexpert analysis:
You have to distinguish between energy and “useful” energy - which is basically energy separation. If the universe were chocked full of hot plasma it would have a lot of energy but it would be useless in the sense that nothing really would happen, no structures would develop, life could not come about. For things to happen there has to be energy “separation”, areas of high energy and areas of low energy and the opportunity for energy to flow from former to latter.
Entropy is a measure of energy separation. Entropy is at a maximum when energy is evenly distributed - as much energy goes from here to there as goes from there to here, so nothing can “happen”. Things can only happen in a universe with low entropy, where energy can flow.
All the processes of our world, weather, geology, electricity, transportation, photosynthesis, chemistry, life, etc, happen because energy is flowing and entropy is increasing. These processes are parts of the flow - parasitic on the flow in a sense.
Somehow our universe started with matter. Somehow space expanded and the matter was pushed apart into a very thin gas. This may seem like “chaos” but it’s actually a state of order and very low entropy. The isolated hydrogen atoms were packets of gravitational and strong-force potential energy. The development of the universe since is the result of the flow of this energy into an increasing, structureless fog of photons.
The sun and earth are the result of gas collapsing and dumping it’s gravitational potential energy into space. The light from the sun is from strong-force potential energy being dumped into space. The earth intercepts some of this flow and it drives weather, ocean currents, and life.
Where the energy or force that drove (drives) the expansion of the universe comes from I can’t say. There must be some extra-universal energy flow processes going on.
I am reading this book right now and that was my first thought when reading the OP. It definitely answers this type of question. But although written for the layman, it is a bit beyond the 6th grade physics level (I didn’t see physics until the 11th grade). I took two physics courses in high school and four semesters in college (if you don’t include Physics of Music :)) and I have had to read a couple of passages more than once.
I also have a very basic knowledge of physics. However matter and energy are interconnected, and most of the energy we have available (as far as I know) is due to the conversion of matter into energy via fusion and fission.
Fission in the sun converts about 4 million tons of matter to energy every second. A small amount of that energy gets to the earth and is used by human civilization and plant/animal life for fossil fuels, food, wind power, solar power, etc. Geothermal and tidal may not be due to fusion or fission though.
I am pretty sure the universe is an adiabatic (isolated) system where energy is neither created or destroyed, just transferred. Gravity may be able to cross between universes (that is a theory) but energy seems to be trapped here. So I am under the impression the universe was created with X amount of energy, and it will keep that energy. But as time passes structures decay and we have a system where everything is pretty much equal. If you put a cup of coffee that is 150F in a 70F room, soon both the coffee and the room will be 70F. Everything becomes the same.
Entropy and disorder is increasing over time. Supposedly all stars will die out in 100 trillion years, by 10^27 years galaxies dissolve and by about 10^45 years atomic particles will decay.
I have probably 2 semesters in college-level physics, 1 in physical chemistry, 2 in thermodynamics. Go go chemical engineering degree!
…I had to reread a lot of the passages too.
When it comes down to the fundamental nature of matter and energy, probably 20 people on earth truly understand it. The rest of us bang bones on the obelisk, hoot like gibbons and once in a while get a glimpse of truth and say, “Damn. That is neat.”
