The notion of Entropy is understood as the transformation of heat into mechanical energy.Entropy usually refers to disorder in the world. Everyday we are dealing with entropy and we do not even realise it.Our daily life can only be sustained if we keep putting things in order and restoring the disorder which requires work, we should all be familiar with the equation W=F/D, physics 101. If we could not sustain any order the entropy would take over creating a lot of disorder in our lives.
If we manage to maintain all the order, then where does the disorder go?
Other people control it. The outside world - society - deals with it on a daily basis. The less disorder that is produced, the less energy there is required for things to be put back into place, today there is a lot of disorder and it is taking a lot of energy to control it. This creates a lot of disorder and pollution, the disorder applies to all scales that are visible to the naked eye. As Deutscher says, "pollution can simply be put as small particles or molecules that are somewhere they should not be" (2008, p.p 223).
This is a system that has always been happening and cannot be overcome. Too much entropy in a closed system will equal an entropy crisis. Earth is largely a closed system, meaning that it exchanges very little matter with its external environment in space, but the same is not true of the systems within the Earth such as Earths natural spheres which are open systems, meaning they can all interact and change with the external environment.
As an example, through our ever increasing emissions, we are making disorder in the atmosphere and it is getting to the point where it is beyond our control - entropy takes over.
Entropy is maximised when particles are released into the atmosphere and then spread out, meaning particles released in Australia will spread across the Globe.
In a closed environment, temperature will always tend to be uniform. Heat flows from hot to cold regions, this is known as energy transfer. Heat transfer is the motion of molecules.
Our world is active and whenever an energy distribution is out of equilibrium a thermodynamic force exists that the world acts to dissipate or minimise. The active nature of the second Law of thermodynamics is easy to grasp and demonstrate. If a cup of hot liquid, for example, is placed in a colder room, a thermodynamic force exists and a flow of heat is spontaneously produced from the cup to the room until the potential is minimised or dissipated (the entropy is maximised) at which point the temperatures are the same and the flow stops, the cup/room system is in thermal equilibrium.
It is shown that the entropy increase due to irreversible transformations ( or unrecoverable energy) simultaneously determines the level of fresh energy supplies of our society and the damage that it causes to the environment.
Minimising the rate of entropy is increasing with advanced technologies and society taking an active role in reducing their own amount of entropy, is the key to a sustainable future.
For further reading:
Deutscher, Guy, 2008. Dealing with entropy on a daily basis. In The Entropy Crisis, Singapore, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/6684
A fabulous documentary that sums up this topic would also be a great resource
http://www.history.com/shows/life-after-people
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