Could the Big Bang be the result of a decrease in entropy?
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entropy is a measure of some system’s ability to do mechanical work compared to its total energy content. Energy can’t be created or destroyed (except for conversions to and from mass). However, its potential to do mechanical work can be changed. The higher the entropy, the less able it is to do mechanical work.
So entropy isn’t really made possible in the way you asked. It is just that all the energy of the time zero universe was available for conversion to mechanical work. But the processes that have taken place ever since have all been at least slightly “irreversible.” That means you can’t push them back the way they were without doing more work. But these irreversibilities are what decrease the potential for the production of mechanical energy. This potential gradually decreases over time. This is the same thing as saying that the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing.
These irreversibilities are not a bad thing in themselves. They are necessary for many good things to happen. For example, friction increases entropy. But we couldn’t walk, or cars couldn’t move without friction. So the universe was designed to make good things happen but some of them cost a kind of degradation of energy. That is the trade-off the universe has built into it and also gives us.
So entropy isn’t really made possible in the way you asked. It is just that all the energy of the time zero universe was available for conversion to mechanical work. But the processes that have taken place ever since have all been at least slightly “irreversible.” That means you can’t push them back the way they were without doing more work. But these irreversibilities are what decrease the potential for the production of mechanical energy. This potential gradually decreases over time. This is the same thing as saying that the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing.
These irreversibilities are not a bad thing in themselves. They are necessary for many good things to happen. For example, friction increases entropy. But we couldn’t walk, or cars couldn’t move without friction. So the universe was designed to make good things happen but some of them cost a kind of degradation of energy. That is the trade-off the universe has built into it and also gives us.
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