Humpty Dumpty Restored: When Disorder Lurches Into Order

[MalignD at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/30/02 12:39:50 PM, fqmorris at hotmail.com writes:

<< http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/science/physical/30ENTR.html

Not all the universe is falling apart all of the time.

An experiment by scientists in Australia has shown that a small patch of 
disorder can momentarily lurch into order, akin to Humpty Dumpty's magically 
putting himself back together again.

That would appear to violate the second law of thermodynamics, which states 
that entropy, a measure of disorder, rises inexorably unless an outside 
energy source maintains things in order. A billow of smoke always disperses, 
never contracts. >>

Has it not long been the position of Hume-descended physicists that "laws," 
even Newton's, are in fact probabilities?  That, just as pure chance will 
allow for a run of 30 flipped coins all coming up heads, so would chance 
operate elsewhere in nature.

It was (in my understanding) Clerk Maxwell's point not just to confound with 
the idea of the Demon (How do he do it?), but that, even without a sorting 
demon, chance allows for the molecules to sort themselves into all faster in 
one chamber, all slower in the other, thus increasing heat in the first 
chamber without an expenditure of energy.  The second law of thermodynamics 
is no less dependable for that, in that the probability for such a random 
sorting is extremely low.  But it is not, finally, a "law," fixed forever, 
unbreakable anywhere at any time.