Heat-death of the universe

There are various expressions of the two laws, the most succinct being that of Rudolf Clausius, who (in 1872) wrote The energy of the world is constant. Its entropy tends to a maximum (some authors translate the original German word Welt as universe ). In the 1930s, the second statement led to the idea of the heat death of the universe and caused much speculation. 

For example, she quotes Crookes s assertions of vitalism at the chemical level as an antidote to the heat-death of the universe that seemed to be entailed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics (1888, 1 603), or second-hand accounts of his lectures on the protyle, with assertions of its similarity to thinking in the Bhagavad Gita (1 681). 

Pamela Zoline, The Heat Death of the Universe is anthologized widely. It can be found in Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, eds, Decade The 1960s (London, 1977). 

Maxwell s demon provided a basis for a great deal of discussion on a spurious issue, i.e., the relation between thermodynamics and "free will." Was there a connection between the heat death of the universe and the exercise of free will This issue died away as it became apparent that the thing which distinguished the demon was superior information, not a will or desire. 

In the latter part of the 19th century Clausius law was also used to predict the heat death of the universe. Just as gas molecules left to their own devices in a closed box will reach a state of maximum randomness, it was argued the same thing would ultimately happen to the universe. At some distant time, the entropy of the universe would be maximized, a state of final equilibrium would prevail, and all processes would cease. This rather bleak outlook was shattered in 1929 when Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding. In a constantly changing universe, total equilibrium is unattainable and entropy must keep changing. 

You may have heard someone mention the "heat death" of the universe. Eventually (many eons from now), all energy will be spread evenly throughout the universe and everything will be at the same temperature. At this point it will no longer be possible to do any work. The universe will be "dead."... 

That is, all processes that occur in the universe lead to a net increase in the disorder of the universe. As the universe "runs," it is always heading toward more disorder. We are plunging slowly but inevitably toward total randomness—the heat death of the universe. But don t despair, it will not happen soon. 

What does the "heat death" of the universe have to do with quality of energy ... 

An age-old argument about the heat-death of the universe is also settled by the interface model. It relates to the problem that the second law of thermodynamics is time-irreversible, but based on time-reversible laws of physics. It has been argued (Boeyens, 2005) that, because the world lines in neighbouring tangent spaces of the curved manifold are not parallel, a static distribution of mass points must be inherently unstable. As systems with non-parallel world lines interact a chaotic situation such as the motion in an ideal gas occurs, which means that time flow generates entropy. 

Helmholtz predicts the heat death of the universe, based on thermodynamics. 

Similarly, Walther Nemst, another of the founding figures of physical chemistry and the discoverer of the third law of thermodynamics, speculated that radioactive atoms could be created in the ether, which was in turn associated with the zero-point energy that had recently been discovered through the new quantum mechanics. He hoped that a mechanism of continuous recychng would prevent the dreaded heat death of the universe that is generally predicted from thermodynamics. 

No violations of the second law of thermodynamics have ever been observed in a properly done experiment, so there is no reason to doubt its applicability. If it is universally applicable, the ultimate fate of the universe will be to approach a state of thermodynamic equilibrium in which every object in the universe will be at the same temperature. There will be no energy flow from stars to planets, and no life or any other macroscopic processes will be possible. This heat death of the universe will of course not occur for a very long time, but is unavoidable if the second law is universally valid. 

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