Saturday, September 20, 2008

Civilization and Entropy

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OGVlY2RhOGM0MWE5MjNmMGM2ZjY0NzcxMjMzMTc5NWI

via Glenn Reynolds

Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls;

versus The Second Law of Thermodynamics:

Bridges and buildings will inevitably collapse, unless entropy is counteracted by the addition of new energy, such as money, energy, power or labor, to the system. If we do not paint the bridge, it will eventually, but inevitably, collapse.

I just found it interesting that someone would describe an effect of entropy while probably unaware of the underlying physical law that dictates that their perception is correct.