Richard Wein wrote:
>"In any ordered system, open or closed, there exists a tendency for that
>system to decay to a state of disorder, which tendency can only be suspended
>or reversed by an external source of ordering energy directed by an
>informational program and transformed through an ingestion-storage-converter
>mechanism into the specific work required to build up the complex structure
>of that system.
>
>If either the information program or the converter mechanism is not
>available to that 'open' system, it will not increase in order, no matter
>how much external energy surrounds it. The system will decay in accordance
>with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Ah, it's 2d law time again. It comes up about twice a year.
How can there really be a closed system? You can always subdivide a
system and say the subsystems are open to each other. Unless it's a system
consisting of one quark, I guess.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ cliff@noe.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 16 2000 - 16:12:20 EST