Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Entropy: Chaos or is it really Order?

I do not understand why my old Biology book explains Entropy as the universe moving towards chaos. Spontaneous reactions take no energy; therefore they move towards entropy, otherwise known as chaos. Yet, on the next page it tells a story of a drop of dye in a container of clear water.

When the molecules of a dye are placed in water, the dye molecules move in various directions but their net movement is in a direction away from the concentrated source until every particle becomes eventually equally distributed throughout the container in a seemingly random way, and to the visible eye, the solution looks lightly evenly colored. The book also goes on to state how diffusion works. Molecules from an area of higher concentration move to an area of lesser concentration. No energy is required. It is spontaneous. The same thing goes for osmosis except with water, and since it takes no energy to perform these tasks, by definition they are working towards entropy.

However, with the rate of mutation and the bit error rate, also known to be effected by outside noise, or more specifically electromagnetic waves also known as radioactive frequencies, is it really so random after all?

If everything is going towards an equal distribution, a form of balance and equilibrium, is it really chaos?

I do not think that this is a form of chaos, but rather order, and random is obviously not so random after all. This would mean that everything is trying to become equally dispersed until a state of equilibrium is reached.

For example, If a bookshelf falls on the floor all the books fall from the bookshelf, in a seemingly random way; however, depending on how the bookshelf falls, how much force, tilt and direction, where the wind is, how much wind, the temperature of the room for the speed of the particles, add the gravity etc, and the books themselves and their properties, will determine where and how the books spread out throughout a room. Therefore becoming more evenly spaced apart or dispersed with a net movement away from the concentrated source of the bookshelf within the room and the known universe. It takes no or little energy for items in a room to become more equally distributed, but energy is needed to compact all those books back onto the shelf, or to compress clothes into a hamper, toys in a box, containers or shelves, or to condense clothes into drawers etc.

Monday, November 5, 2007

3rd Time's A Charm

The number 3, in my opinion, is truly the first prime number and hence, why the old saying third time is a charm is true. As most people know a prime number is a number with no factors except for itself times or multiplied by 1. However, 1 multiplied by itself is not considered a prime number because the only factor is 1, which is itself. Therefore, it only has 1 factor instead of the normal two, 1 and itself. Something is there.

The number 2 in western mathematics is considered the first prime number, because it is the first number that has only two factors and at least two factors 1 and itself. The number 1 multiplied by 2 equals 2. These are the only factors of the number 2. Everything has a compliment. What goes up must come down.

However, I do not consider the number 2 to be the first true prime number, because it is the only prime number that can be divided into two whole parts equally. No other even number, which can be divided equally in whole into two different parts, after the number 2 is a prime number. They are all divisible by the number 1, itself and the number 2. Many could say the number 2 would be the exception to the rule, but this is all the more reason why the number 3 is so special.

In my opinion, the number 3 is the first true prime number, because the number 3 only has two factors the number 1 and itself, and the number 3 cannot be divided equally into two parts, and there are still whole quantities between the number 1 and itself. The number 3 is the first special number after 1 and 2. There is positive, negative, and neutral. It is possible to be up or down, or neither. Therefore, it takes at least 3 to define a majority, or quality of an item, a location or direction. The number 3 is the first number to break a tie. Once, twice, third time’s a charm.