You stated (elsewhere) that thermodynamics overwhelms just about everything soon…

You stated (elsewhere) that thermodynamics overwhelms just about everything sooner or later. Could you explain why? — MT, San Antonio, TX

One of the principal observations of thermodynamics (and statistical mechanics, a related field) is that vast, complicated systems naturally evolve from relatively unlikely arrangements to relatively likely arrangements. This trend is driven by the laws of probability and the fact that improbable things don’t happen often. Here’s an example: consider your sock drawer, which contains 100 each of red and blue socks (it’s a large drawer and you really like socks). Suppose you arrange the drawer so that all the red socks are on one side and all the blue socks are on the other. This arrangement is highly improbable—it didn’t happen by chance; you caused it to be ordered. If you now turn out the light and randomly exchange socks within the drawer, you’re awfully likely to destroy this orderly situation. When you turn the light back on, you will almost certainly have a mixture of red and blue socks on each side of the drawer. You could turn the light back out and try to use chance to return the socks to their original state, but your chances of succeeding are very small. Even though the system you are playing with has only 200 objects in it, the laws of probability are already making it nearly impossible to order it by chance alone. By the time you deal with bulk matter, which contains vast numbers of individual atoms or electrons or bits of energy, chance and the laws of probability dominate everything. Even when you try to impose order on a system, the laws of probability limit your success: there are no perfect crystals, perfectly clean rooms, flawless structures. These objects aren’t forbidden by the laws of motion, they are simply too unlikely to ever occur.

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