# What the hell is a "Vonnegutian reverse-entropy universe"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313 "2004-01-02T17:00:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mogiaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mogiaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mogiaw)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/1 "2004-01-02T17:00:54Z")
Reading [this](http://www.theonion.com/3951/news1.html) article in the onion i came across the term “Vonnegutian reverse-entropy universe”. It is in the last paragraph of the article. I assume it refers to Kurt Vonnegut but what is a reverse-entropy universe? thanks, Mogiaw ---
**Author:** ![maralinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@maralinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maralinn)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/2 "2004-01-02T17:05:02Z")
This might help: [http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node42.html](http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node42.html) ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/3 "2004-01-02T19:21:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by maralinn \* > \*\*This might help: > > [http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node42.html](http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/sm1/lectures/node42.html) \*\* Thanks, Maralinn! I get to go home early from work because my brain exploded! ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/4 "2004-01-04T04:13:58Z")
I think the “Vonnegutian” bit is an allusion to _Slaughterhouse-Five_, whose main character is “unstuck in time” and doesn’t experience the moments of his life in chronological order. More information [here.](http://www.rosettabooks.com/pages/title_31.html) And **maralinn** ’s link, when distilled to its essence, is essentially the statement that it’s a lot more likely for a ordered system to become disordered than the other way around, i.e. the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This explains why we see coffee cups fall off of tables & smash themselves to bits, but we never see the bits spontaneously reassemble themselves into a coffee cup and jump up onto the table. Physicists use a concept called “entropy” to mathematically describe the amount of disorder in a system, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that entropy always increases; presumably someone in a “reverse-entropy” Universe would always see entropy decrease instead. On preview, I see that if I’d read all the way to the bottom of **maralinn** ’s link I wouldn’t have had to type all of this is. Ah well. ---
**Author:** ![pokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@pokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pokey)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/5 "2004-01-04T05:48:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MikeS \* > \*\*I think the “Vonnegutian” bit is an allusion to _Slaughterhouse-Five_, whose main character is “unstuck in time” and doesn’t experience the moments of his life in chronological order. More information [here.](http://www.rosettabooks.com/pages/title_31.html) > \*\* There’s a specific part of that book where Billy comes slightly unstuck in time and sees a war movie on late night tv backwards. So bombed cities are reassembled and soldiers grow backwards to become innocent kids, Hitler turned into a baby. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/6 "2004-01-04T14:39:31Z")
I tried to read the article in **maralinn’s** link. I really did. I got a little goggle-eyed at the formulae with the Martian letters. Then I came to the part where “v=the number of moles,” and I got dizzy and fell off my chair. Many thanks to **MikeS** and **pokey** for explaining in it English. Some of you mathmaticians and physicists are rolling your eyes and pigeonholing me as a primitive being; you know who you are. Hey, I can accomodate your esoteric glossolalia, but please understand that it’s vertigenous for some of us. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/7 "2004-01-04T14:43:04Z")
“Mathematicians,” that is. ---
**Author:** ![bbeaty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c0e974/32.png) [@bbeaty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbeaty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/8 "2004-01-06T07:19:46Z")
Even better timereversed SF is the episode of Red Dwarf called [“Backwards.”](http://tvsothertenpercent.tripod.com/reddwarf/backwards.html) ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2004, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-vonnegutian-reverse-entropy-universe/222313/9 "2004-01-06T17:54:54Z")
I think a true example of a reverse-entropy universe is well illustrated in David Brin’s novel, [The Practice Effect](http://www.sfreviews.com/docs/David%20Brin_1984_The%20Practice%20Effect.htm). (Note: for Brin fans, this is an uncharacteristic space-opera-style romp, rather than the hard SF Brin is noted for. And a mediocre one at that.)