On Thermodynamics (2010-)

"Second Law of thermodynamics is not an equality, but an inequality, asserting merely that a certain quantity referred to as the entropy of an isolated system - which is a measure of the system’s disorder, or ‘randomness’ - is greater" (or at least not smaller) at later times than it was at earlier times." (Roger Penrose, "Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe", 2010)

"If everything in the universe evolves toward increasing disorder, it must have started out in an exquisitely ordered arrangement. This whole chain of logic, purporting to explain why you can't turn an omelet into an egg, apparently rests on a deep assumption about the very beginning of the universe. It was in a state of very low entropy, very high order. Why did our part of the universe pass though a period of such low entropy?" (Sean Carroll, "From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time", 2010)

"The laws of thermodynamics tell us something quite different. Economic activity is merely borrowing low-entropy energy inputs from the environment and transforming them into temporary products and services of value. In the transformation process, often more energy is expended and lost to the environment than is embedded in the particular good or service being produced." (Jeremy Rifkin, "The Third Industrial Revolution", 2011)

"The reactions that break down large molecules into small ones do not require an input of energy, but the reactions that build up large molecules require and input of energy. This is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics, which say that large, orderly molecules tend to break down into small, disorderly molecules." (Stanley A Rice, "Life of Earth: Portrait of a Beautiful, Middle-aged Stressed-out World", 2011)

"The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in an isolated system" (one that is not taking in energy), entropy never decreases." (The First Law is that energy is conserved; the Third, that a temperature of absolute zero is unreachable.) Closed systems inexorably become less structured, less organized, less able to accomplish interesting and useful outcomes, until they slide into an equilibrium of gray, tepid, homogeneous monotony and stay there." (Steven Pinker, "The Second Law of Thermodynamics", 2017)

"The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in an isolated system (one that is not taking in energy), entropy never decreases. (The First Law is that energy is conserved; the Third, that a temperature of absolute zero is unreachable.) Closed systems inexorably become less structured, less organized, less able to accomplish interesting and useful outcomes, until they slide into an equilibrium of gray, tepid, homogeneous monotony and stay there." (Steven Pinker, "The Second Law of Thermodynamics", 2017)

"Euler’s formula - although deceptively simple - is actually staggeringly conceptually difficult to apprehend in its full glory, which is why so many mathematicians and scientists have failed to see its extraordinary scope, range, and ontology, so powerful and extensive as to render it the master equation of existence, from which the whole of mathematics and science can be derived, including general relativity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces! It’s not called the God Equation for nothing. It is much more mysterious than any theistic God ever proposed." (Thomas Stark, "God Is Mathematics: The Proofs of the Eternal Existence of Mathematics", 2018).

"Disorder is a collective property of large assemblages; it makes no sense to say a single molecule is disordered or random. Thermodynamic quantities like entropy and heat energy are defined by reference to enormous numbers of particles - for example, molecules of gas careering about - and averaging across them without considering the details of individual particles. (Such averaging is sometimes called a ‘coarse-grained view’.) Thus, the temperature of a gas is related to the average energy of motion of the gas molecules. The point is that whenever one takes an average some information is thrown away, that is, we accept some ignorance. The average height of a Londoner tells us nothing about the height of a specific person. Likewise, the temperature of a gas tells us nothing about the speed of a specific molecule. In a nutshell: information is about what you know, and entropy is about what you don’t know." (Paul Davies, "The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life", 2019)