4.1 LIES

Now we come to the 'closed system' MYTH..

"SECOND LAW DOES NOT APPLY BECAUSE THE EARTH IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM"

Previously I showed why entropy by definition means: Measure of Disorder.. because it must encompass the tendency to both random position and momentum of atoms.. If this were not the case then atomic diffusion could not occur as predictably as it does. {Ref: The Cambridge Encyclopedia: Entropy}

Now all the momentum of all the atoms in a system averaged out = temperature, which is itself a measure of the quantity of heat energy in the system. But entropy is not energy.

The tendency to a random distribution of position is not apparent if all the atoms are the same. Confusing entropy and energy leads to the mistaken belief the calculation of entropy change based on heat flow alone is all that is required. But that calculation says nothing about a mixture of atoms (positional distribution of each type). It is precisely because we know a mixture will of itself tend to distribute into a homogeneous state, (called atomic diffusion) we know any calculation of entropy cannot ignore positional distribution, of any particles in the system. If the temperature and pressure in a room is uniform but half of the room is oxygen and the other nitrogen it is in an ordered state and has not reached thermodynamic equilibrium.

The above tendencies are the reason heat will always flow from hot to cold and atoms will mix evenly (diffusion). So powerful is this tendency it means all real processes observable on earth are irreversable and will never be observed to go the other way.. unless driven to do so as in a refrigerator. The refrigerator does NOT change that tendency.. it overcomes it by having in place an ordering principle that directs energy to pump heat from cold to hot. Note the second law is dependent upon the average tendency to equilibrium (position and momentum) which always acts in all systems both closed and open.

Yes it is true the second law says.. "In an isolated system entropy will increase" if we ignore hypothetical and impossible 'reversible' systems which don't exist. We also do not need to bother with formal definitions of closed or isolated for my purpose here. So how do we know entropy will always increase.?

Because we can show that in any OPEN system for every (local) entropy decrease (ie order increase).. the process that does it creates a bigger increase in the entropy (disorder) of its immediate surroundings. That fact is experimentally verified. If this were not the case then we could not say entropy will always increase in an isolated system! So the very definition of the second law (for an isolated system) requires entropy balance in the open system.

So to state the 2nd law does not apply in open systems omits the crucial point that there is an entropy cost in open systems driven by the same thing that drives the second law. So in that sense while the second law cannot be 'applied' to an open system the principle that makes the second law possible will always work and it can be calculated.

The principle of entropy balance in open systems is all that is needed for me to show evolution by natural selection cannot pay the entropy cost for the very highly ordered states in living cells. That is the purpose of [The God Law] blog.