ENTROPIC HOPE

Dr. Smart, with sweeping dioramics,

summarized theory accepted today:

“The first few laws of thermodynamics:

You can’t win, break even or get away.

“No matter speed of acceleration,

the universe runs down since the Big Bang.

The fate of order is dissipation.

The spring, once sprung, can’t be re-sprung. It sprang.

“A system needs energy to survive

or it’s unable to do work, of course.

On galactic scales or like us, alive,

complexity is the result of force.

“And, though the first two laws say we can’t win,

they’re only ‘law’ to a statistician.”

In truth, it would not violate the laws of physics if all of the oxygen molecules in the air of a room grouped themselves, by random movements, into only one corner of the room, suffocating the occupant.  It (almost) never happens, but there is nothing mathematically stopping it from occurring.  We are as unlikely to ever see it happen as to see a broken cup reassemble itself, but that does not make it a complete impossibility.