Entropy

[+flask]

besides "extropy", which is a neologism, is there a term that describes an opposing concept to entropy?

 

if i have to tell you why this isn't OT, i'll have to have you killed. let's just say it's geocaching related and leave it at that.

[+Stunod]

besides "extropy", which is a neologism, is there a term that describes an opposing concept to entropy?

 

if i have to tell you why this isn't OT, i'll have to have you killed. let's just say it's geocaching related and leave it at that.

order, organization, regularity, tranquility

 

(source)

Edited August 20, 2004 by Stunod

[+WeightMan]

Would you be referring to the ability of the swag in a cache getting better over time due to every one trading up? The word for that is impossible.

 

[+AuntieWeasel]

order, organization, regularity, tranquility

Snap! Let me guess...Google toolbar?

[+Stunod]

order, organization, regularity, tranquility

Snap! Let me guess...Google toolbar?

Nope....dictionary.com

[+flask]

yes, i know the standard ones from the thesaurides, but there were some terms i think i remember not paying attention to in high school.

 

i'm kind of looking for a technical term.

[ju66l3r]

As a bioinformaticist with a degree in molecular biology and having studied biochemistry, thermodynamics and high-order systems, I can decisively say that the technical term "entropy" doesn't have an "opposite", per se.

 

Entropy is the state of organization of the system. It is the equivalent of temperature in terms of how it works conceptually.

 

Things are hot or cold, but temperature itself as a concept doesn't have an "opposite".

 

Things are disorganized (like molecules in a gas...steam for example) or organized (like molecules in a solid...ice for example), but entropy doesn't have an opposite.

 

Stunods list (I personally would go with order/ordered) is about as good as any you're going to find.

[DaJeep]

Well, when the Great AC was asked "Can Entropy be reversed", for many millenia, the great AC replied "There is yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer". In time, however, when all the suns had run their course and all the energy in the universe was almost exhausted, the Great AC learned how to reverse entropy, but there was nobody left to tell the answer. That however was not an issue since the solution itself would provide it's own proof.

 

And if you want to know how the Great AC learned to reverse entropy, visit your local library and read Issac Asimov's classic short story called "The Last Question".

 

As for a true scientific word, try: Probity or Rectitude

 

Please note that Entropy is a decline or removal of something from a system. The opposite is not the addition to a system, but the absense of that removal. Entropy is an occurance, not an action per se. There is no known occuring event that systematicly improves a system with no outside forces as Entropy describes a system losing resources with no outside influence. Thus, we really have no such word I think for your desired thought.

[+flask]

i think i remember a word that describes a system that becomes more orderly. i know entropy itself doesn't have an opposite.

 

yes, i know that there's no such thing as a true closed system that does become more orderly. but there's a word for the concept, isn't there? there were three words i that were in the group of things i was supposed to have learned, but i was too busy trying to be eccentric and dramatic in that way that ONLY adolescents can be, and i failed to pay attention.

 

every once in a while i still go back to my old high school to apologize. i was capable of fully disrupting a class by simply sitting there and reading quietly. it's a good trick if you can pull it off, but it does not help your comprehension of the material. not one bit.

[+The Leprechauns]

I believe the word you're looking for is "enthalpy."

 

Now please either kill me, or reveal the relation of this to geocaching, or do I need to change clothes and lock the topic?

[+flask]

if i tell you, i will have to have you killed. i need the assistance for a geocaching project, and if you're really, really paying attention, you can figger it out. you probably don't care enough to do the detective work.

 

i'm reading the comments and preparing a geo-thingy as we speak. do you want me to lock the topic when i get it sorted out?

[+The Leprechauns]

Well, one "geo-project," if it can be called that, was your thought about seeing how many off-topic threads you could start. Or was I not paying close enough attention?

 

Did I get the right word? Can you tell me that and just deliver a flesh wound, without killing me?

 

I really don't know if you need to lock the topic when you're finished. I would have to go ask a moderator.

[+flask]

enthalpy is pretty good; it fits the half-memory that's nagging at me, but when i looked it up it doesn't quite fit the concept of the project.

 

i'm still working out the details, and until i get it sorted out, i'm leaving the floor open for suggestions. i don't have to commit to the language until it's street-ready.

[ju66l3r]

No no no no...enthalpy isn't related to the order of the system directly at all.

 

Enthalpy is a function of the internal energy, pressure and volume in a system.

 

Entropy and enthalpy are hardly opposites, even in concept.

 

This link is a writeup from a 1960's text on energies that I think might help clarify why I point out that you're searching for a word that just doesn't really exist.

 

Any synonym for "highly-ordered" or "low disorder" is going to give you the word you are looking for but these are not the opposite of entropy...entropy is a measure, not a quality.

 

In the meantime, if you're looking for the relevance, read the TB forum.

[Zoptrop]

What about neguentropy?

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=...e+of+entropy%22

[ju66l3r]

Neguentropy is made-up, holistic hoo-ha...

 

How Sound and Music Heal

 

How does Sound and Music affect healing? Music and Sound saturate living cells with Nutritive Energy (Negentropic). Studied under laboratory conditions, musical information seems to increase capacities and coherence, whether they are cells or neurons. Ones own DNA hears the Music or Sound and participates in a consciousness process. We know that the cells, by way of physical and vibratory configuration of its DNA, is capable of picking up, storing and broadcasting information about the environment. This suggests that living matter, whether it be human or animal, organizes its environment, which demonstrates that cells communicate with one another. Neguentropy is a negative entropy without which no living system would be viable. Neguentropy is a force of information that organizes the structures and functions of living systems and participates in intercellular bio-communication. The first effect of Music or Healing Sound is that of auto-diagnosis, immediately followed by a therapeutic effect, first the revelation of traumas or disease, and then their immediate corrections or healing operated by our non local higher consciousness.

[Zoptrop]

holistic hoo-ha

 

LMAO!

 

Kinda like the stuff where the "water remembers" Homeopathy stuff?

 

Hmm... give me a shot of penacillin any day.

 

(in all due respect of course)

[+Renegade Knight]

Strangly enough the closes I can get to the absolute opposite of entropy is light. As in let there be light. Or the big bang for the scientific types. The ultimate form of creation and order to counter the entropic heat death of the universe.

 

An I don't think that's going to fit what you are doing.

[+PilotMan]

Hehe. Funny coincidence, I just learned about entropy yesterday in class. Funny how nuclear reactors and geocaching have so much in common these days. Hehe.

[+flask]

No no no no...enthalpy isn't related to the order of the system directly at all.

 

Enthalpy is a function of the internal energy, pressure and volume in a system.

 

Entropy and enthalpy are hardly opposites, even in concept.

 

This link is a writeup from a 1960's text on energies that I think might help clarify why I point out that you're searching for a word that just doesn't really exist.

 

Any synonym for "highly-ordered" or "low disorder" is going to give you the word you are looking for but these are not the opposite of entropy...entropy is a measure, not a quality.

 

In the meantime, if you're looking for the relevance, read the TB forum.

i am NOT looking for relevance. my whole life proves this very nicely, thank you.

[+Robespierre]

Not at all sure why we are discussing this, but I'm sure entropy will take over. What concerns me is:

As a bioinformaticist with a degree in molecular biology and having studied biochemistry, thermodynamics and high-order systems, I can decisively say that the technical term "entropy" doesn't have an "opposite", per se.

HE'S right! And enthalpy is not at all the word you want....Stunod did as well as you will find.

[+The Blind Acorn]

I believe the word you're looking for is "enthalpy."

 

Now please either kill me, or reveal the relation of this to geocaching, or do I need to change clothes and lock the topic?

Nope Enthalpy and Entropy aren't opposites, but I'm too tired to get into the details, plus someone else already did....

 

Speaking of entropy, that would describe the state of my mind right now.

[+n5psp]

Entropy is what happens to my kitchen sink when I go look for a geocache instead of wash the dishes for a couple of days in a row

[ju66l3r]

i am NOT looking for relevance. my whole life proves this very nicely, thank you.

I was talking to the Lepre's with that specific statement.

[davwil]

Could it be *endothermic*?

 

Article which reminds me of Highschool Chem.

 

I think of it as two geo-cache events:

 

One in the Southern US where all the cachers meet at a specific point and then because it's too hot, they all take off in all directions trying to find the caches and thus causing maximum randomness.

 

One in Canada where all the cachers huddle around the fire, waiting to get warm so they can go find the caches. If they require more energy to reach a state of maximum randomness they first try a Tim Hotrons and if they do not acquire enough energy there they will seek alcohol to promote an exothermic reaction which usually does end up with the group in a state of maximum randomness. This usally results in many, many DNF's,

 

edit to add:

Sometimes the addition of alcohol to the reaction will cause many of the participants to reach a state of *equilibrium* or *horizontal position* thus achieving a new goal and thus completing the reaction.... err... Cache Event.

 

D.

Edited August 21, 2004 by davwil

[+flask]

i am NOT looking for relevance. my whole life proves this very nicely, thank you.

I was talking to the Lepre's with that specific statement.

i knew that. i just couldn't pass up a chance to be a smarty-pants.

[+Team Screamapillar]

It's obvious, isn't it? The answer is "Anti-entropy." Why you people have to make it so complicated, I just don't understand.

 

All aboard for the Semiotics and Ontology thread...

 

(any other ex-Philosophy Majors out there?)

[ju66l3r]

i am NOT looking for relevance. my whole life proves this very nicely, thank you.

I was talking to the Lepre's with that specific statement.

i knew that. i just couldn't pass up a chance to be a smarty-pants.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you're one of my ex-girlfriends.

[+The Leprechauns]

i am NOT looking for relevance. my whole life proves this very nicely, thank you.

I was talking to the Lepre's with that specific statement.

i knew that. i just couldn't pass up a chance to be a smarty-pants.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you're one of my ex-girlfriends.

Since it's a topic about definitions, I hope this is on-topic.....

 

smarty-pants: A pair of ladies' pants that does not let a ju66l3r in them.

[ju66l3r]

Since this is a topic about entropy...

 

Who wants to be in the pants, if they're on the floor already?

[+EraSeek]

The gravestone of Ludwig Boltzmann

 

[+AuntieWeasel]

Wow! It looks like he's dissolving into a leopard-print seat cover!

[+EraSeek]

S=K log W above his gravestone is the definition of Entropy.

Basically it says "Entropy is the logarithm of probability"

 

"Quantitaively, entropy is disorder, which has a natural tendency to increase. Experimentally it is measured by the ratio of heat to temperature.

Theoreically it is related to the number of digits of the probability."

 

To me entropy defiines the universe in that order is not the result of a disordered state. Something must intitiate order. Nothing can only produce nothing. Void can be only void.

[+Team GPSaxophone]

I believe the word you're looking for is "enthalpy."

 

Now please either kill me, or reveal the relation of this to geocaching, or do I need to change clothes and lock the topic?

No, no...keep your clothes on. PLEASE

[+flask]

If I didn't know better, I'd say you're one of my ex-girlfriends.

 

how do you know i'm not?

[ju66l3r]

If I didn't know better, I'd say you're one of my ex-girlfriends.

 

how do you know i'm not?

Your gallery belies your animals.

[Cholo]

It's obvious, isn't it? The answer is "Anti-entropy." Why you people have to make it so complicated, I just don't understand.

 

Yes, it is obvious. All these answers are a crock, but you're in luck. Entropy is the filling of a canopy. The opposite of this is to empty the canopy. The word for that is emptropy.

How this pertains to a cache depends on if the canopy is the type you stand under, or stand over.