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 an empty lighter. You flick it and the flint makes contact with the spark wheel and you see a little tiny “explosion” or sparks if you will. Probably lasts a second and then nothing.
All of the energy from the friction is spent in that second.
If you were to record that event close up on a super slow motion camera you could stretch out that event to minutes, hours, days, etc and you could watch all of the flint particles heat up, explode, fly out, and eventually dissipate to nothing.
That’s basically the universe on a really really really really really really long timeline.
If we were able to get a recording of that, we would just fast forward it x whatever number to equate a second and it will look something like that lighter being flicked.
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