Can entropy ever be reversed?

Question

Will mankind one day, without the net expenditure of energy, be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it has died of old age? Or, put more simply: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Answer 1

According to classical physics, the total entropy of the Universe must increase. No matter what you do, eventually everything becomes completely uniform and life, intelligence, civilization, etc, are no longer possible (in fact, time effectively stops, because nothing more can possibly happen).

HOWEVER, this model of physics is not necessarily complete. There are two more important points to consider:
1. Quantum mechanics says that entropy only increases ON AVERAGE. It is still POSSIBLE for entropy to decrease randomly; quantum randomness inserts a little extra energy into the Universe. This energy is completely insignificant in our high-energy time period, but towards the end of the Universe, when the density of available energy is extremely low, this would be much larger, eventually providing virtually all the available energy. It is conceivable that some strange life form may be able to survive on this energy.
2. There is also something called zero point energy. Quantum mechanics says that at an extremely small level, the entire Universe is filled with a tiny 'standing wave'. Normally it has almost no effect, due to being so tiny; you can imagine being on an ocean liner with little ripples all around you, they'd all cancel each other out and you'd stay in the same place. But as a matter of fact, the actual power of zero point energy, on its own scale, is enormous: Every liter of space contains enough zero point energy to boil away all the oceans on Earth! While almost all of this energy is too small to be useful to us, it is possible that, through the right techniques, the power of the largest waves could be harnessed and used by intelligent beings. If we succeed in building ZPE power plants, then there is no more reason to be concerned about entropy.

So, you'll just have to cross your fingers that we develop either ZPE power plants or some way of allowing us to live off the tiny amount of energy present at the end of the Universe. :)

Answer 2

Can Entropy Be Reversed

Answer 3

Well, what was the Big Bang? The end of spacetime does not require the leveling of heat energy by entropy,
and we may be passengers in a cyclic Universe. Our lives are far too brief to speculate, and entropy does not at present seem to be needed. We observe small and large entropy every day and it may simply be a coincident by-product of the aging of the Universe. If it can be reversed, then other knowledge that may be discovered in the future will be needed.

Answer 4

Edit: My original was off. Any localized area can have a tendency towards order, but in the end, it will tend back to entropy. The only way to reverse this trend is by applying energy.

Maybe some future culture will be able to seed the sun with a massive amount of hydrogen again and remove some of the waste products. But it might be easier to just go to a new solar system if we have all that power.

Answer 5

No. It can not be done -

In thermodynamics, entropy, symbolized by S, is a state function of a thermodynamic system defined by the differential quantity dS = dQ / T, where dQ is the amount of heat absorbed in a reversible process in which the system goes from one state to another, and T is the absolute temperature.[1] Entropy is one of the factors that determines the free energy in the system and appears in the second law of thermodynamics. In terms of statistical mechanics, the entropy describes the number of the possible microscopic configurations of the system. The statistical definition of entropy is generally thought to be the more fundamental definition, from which all other important properties of entropy follow. Although the concept of entropy was originally a thermodynamic construct, it has been adapted in other fields of study, including information theory, psychodynamics, thermoeconomics, and evolution.

Answer 6

Stephen Hawking is a good read on the death of stars:

"The first indication of a connection between black holes and entropy, came in 1970, with my discovery that the area of the horizon of a black hole, always increased. There was an obvious analogy with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy always increases. But it was Jacob Bekenstein, who took the bold step, of suggesting the area actually was the physical entropy, and that it counted the internal states of the black hole. I was very much against this idea at first, because I felt it was a misuse of my horizon area result. If a black hole had a physical entropy, it would also have a physical temperature. If a black hole was in contact with thermal radiation, it would absorb some of the radiation, but it would not give off any radiation, since by definition, a black hole was a region from which nothing could escape. If the thermal radiation was at a lower temperature than the black hole, the loss of entropy down the black hole, would be greater than the increase of horizon area."

Answer 7

Sorry, but your question can be answered with both yes and no. By putting externally supplied energy into a system, one can decrease the entropic (is that even a word, heh it is now :P) tendencies of the system. If one has a closed system and does not input any more energy into the system then entropy rules.

Answer 8

The current thinking is, No. But, never say never... we are way too new at trying to understand the universe to be sure of anything.

Aloha

Answer 9

And God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light.

I'm not religious, but that's the kind of thing you're looking for: almighty supernatural god-magic. Don't count on it happening.

Answer 10

yes


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