I was trying to explain this to my sister – or at least, the concept that everything is finite (we have *very* strange conversations), but I cannot explain it to save my life. What’s a good way of explaining entropy and the basics of thermodynamics to a layperson?
In: Physics
Imagine a universe where there are only two objects. One is really hot and the other is really cold. The hot object will gradually cool down while the cool object will gradually absorb the heat from the hot one. When the two objects are the same temperature, it’s no longer possible for any heat to pass from one to the other. That moment represents the heat death of the system.
The universe we live in has a lot more than two objects, and some of them have ways to generate more heat for everything else to absorb. Because of that, it will take a long time to achieve true heat death, on the order of quintillions of years. But current models suggest that it will eventually happen.
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