If the universe is a closed system it will transfer the energy from its system to nothingless. So surely its isolated?
How can the university increase in disorder when energy is neither created or distroyed?
How can the university increase in disorder when energy is neither created or distroyed?
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Hi! Good to have some conceptual questions every now and then; it keeps us honest.
Part 1: A closed system means that the Universe does not exchange energy i.e. heat with anything else. There are no surroundings. A word we use is "adiabatic." When you speak of "nothingness," I hear a philosophical term. Be careful of this! Sticking with science, if you define isolation as not being in contact or communication with something else then yes, the Universe is isolated. (We are not going to get into multiverse theory and advanced theoretical physics. We can if you want, but probably better not to since everything really comes down to advanced mathematics that just doesnt seem like it would help most Yahoo! Answers users.)
Part 2: Ah! Nice question because you are hinting at something truly fundamental: the laws of thermodynamics (TD). Be careful here because you are confusing two laws to mean the same thing; namely the 2nd law of TD (or entropy/disorder) and the 1st law of TD (or conservation of energy). Without going too deep into it, maybe this can help distinguish the two: energy not being created or destroyed is a global statement, but notice that there is no mention of what constitutes "useful" energy?! This is where the concept of entropy comes to play. In other words, you can be dealt a total of 5 cards out of 52 in a deck and sure there are no more or less cards involved, but what you get out of them is all the difference between a pair or straight-flush!
Hope that helps.
Part 1: A closed system means that the Universe does not exchange energy i.e. heat with anything else. There are no surroundings. A word we use is "adiabatic." When you speak of "nothingness," I hear a philosophical term. Be careful of this! Sticking with science, if you define isolation as not being in contact or communication with something else then yes, the Universe is isolated. (We are not going to get into multiverse theory and advanced theoretical physics. We can if you want, but probably better not to since everything really comes down to advanced mathematics that just doesnt seem like it would help most Yahoo! Answers users.)
Part 2: Ah! Nice question because you are hinting at something truly fundamental: the laws of thermodynamics (TD). Be careful here because you are confusing two laws to mean the same thing; namely the 2nd law of TD (or entropy/disorder) and the 1st law of TD (or conservation of energy). Without going too deep into it, maybe this can help distinguish the two: energy not being created or destroyed is a global statement, but notice that there is no mention of what constitutes "useful" energy?! This is where the concept of entropy comes to play. In other words, you can be dealt a total of 5 cards out of 52 in a deck and sure there are no more or less cards involved, but what you get out of them is all the difference between a pair or straight-flush!
Hope that helps.
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Just to elaborate a bit on the latter part of Diddler's part 2 answer, increasing entropy results in evening out of the existing energy distribution in the universe. At maximum entropy, the energy in the universe would be evenly distributed. The idea of 'useful energy' is energy that can perform work. But in order for energy to perform work, there has to be a differential in energy which would not exist at maximum entropy. So the bottom line is that the energy of the universe isn't decreased or increased, it is just redistributed evenly. And once it is redistributed evenly, it can't do anything.