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Re: maximum entropy and the seeking of lowest PE



I have to nitpick here,

Every system has an ultimate thermodynamic fate as a
black hole, even if the only way to get there is via QM tunneling.

Case I: no QM allowed; but GR is allowed (i.e. black holes are allowed)

If the Universe consisted of the "spherical" Sun and the "spherical uniform
density" earth only, orbiting at roughly the current earth-sun density. The
ultimate fate is the earth orbiting the sun and is not a black hole

Case II: QM allowed

Let's say we finally have reached the ultimate state of a black hole (I'm
not agreeing that this has to happen; I'm just examining that particular
case). Then Hawking radiation affect would occur and the BH would evaporate
away until we had some sort of bath of thermodynamically distributed
elementary particles (for the most part) through out the Universe.


The statistical underpinnings of the 2nd law of thermodynamics do not imply
that the entropy of an isolated system increases or stays the same for any
given process. It is possible for an isolated system, through spontaneous
fluctuations, to have a lowering of its entropy.

They imply that for a typical macroscopic sized isolated system that there
is an overwhelming probability that a given process will involve an increase
in the entropy of the system. But there is some finite probability (even if
very very very very very tiny) that the entropy decreases.

If you take a small isolated microscopic size system, say 10 spin 1/2
particles in a uniform magnetic field, there is a rather large probability
that a process will be accompanied by an entropy decrease.

Joel