Lost within the Matrix
... finding a point of reference
Whenever I talk to mathematically enabled people, they all tell me:
What I am trying to do is pointless and futile, mathematicians have already sorted out any problem, simple or complex, and will continue to do so in the future for all time.
I agree.
However, this is not about how to deal with a problem, but rather what it means.
Or, to put it more distinctly:
When I ask someone versed in physics where the formula S=Q/T will lead me at or near T=0K, I get told that oh, never mind, absolute zero does not exist in reality, it's just a theoretical fiction; while, on the mathematical side, I get told that a 'forbidden' division by zero is just a theoretical fiction as well, mathematics have developed genius ways of getting around that problem.
[And, of course, the statements that "absolute zero cannot be actively reached" physically, and the fact that the same (non-) zero can only be approached mathematically, but never actually reached - if T is in the denominator - correspond; but there remains the issue that S does not approach zero near T=0]
But:
This isn't a mathematical problem.
What I am trying to check is not the problem, but the possible solution or key to a closed mind-gate on the path to a deeper phenomenon, one that may just happen to open easily in the other way, and does not have to be climbed over in order to open the way to the idea that the fundamental force in the universe is gravity, ubiquitous, eternal and omnipotent as it is.
Namely, that the present (and indeed local) form of the universe is the expression of 12-15 billion years of dead matter transforming itself through its property of mutual attraction creating energy and order through separation, something thermodynamics cannot do.
But such a possible solution, i. e. inverting the original formula for that theoretical problem, has a merit of its own: namely, fixing the coordinate system for entropy (as any other property or entity) to a point of reference of absolute zero (or zero/zero/zero).
In any system, be it economical or physical, you can draw any line or graph according to a data set; but if you have no idea where it runs through its point zero, i. e. where zero input results in zero output, it is adrift on the high seas of time and space and relativity (not in the Einstein sense; but in the sense that something may be more or less relatively, but you cannot say how much in absolute terms), and you are adrift with it.
Without some sort of Greenwich Meridian (to fix space) and, for example, precise chronometers (to fix time), you simply cannot tell where you are.
In fact, you could be anywhere; and all you can say is that relative to yesterday, this or that has changed. Did you move? Did the system move? It is impossible to say. You might end up walking against the polar ice drift.
Two continents drift apart, measurable to the inch. But does the more eastern continent drift to the east, or the one to its west drift to the west? Or do they both drift in the same direction, one just faster than the other?
On a static globe, who can tell? On a rotating one, at least we have an equator an two poles as (sort of) fixed coordinates; a drift north or south can be measured against them, absolutely. A drift east or west remains relative.
Unless, of course, an obvious asymmetry in appearance and a combination of longitudinal and latitudinal movements provide a hint...
You could even be in the negative, without knowing.
Simply distributing money or things without input runs any economic system spiraling into the ground; for one, due to its inherent thermodynamic friction loss, for another, due to the even greater need to compensate for the inevitable loss of energy potential and order in the running of a thermodynamic system - be it biologically alive or dead.
Perhaps you may be able to say that the price of something has risen. But has its value? Or has the value of your currency dropped? So you measure it against the value in a foreign currency, if there is one. What if that currency is as unstable as yours? How do you define the absolute price of something? Or poverty?
There may be many different ways in use around any problem, even valid ones, up to the point of simply stating that there is no absolute ("all is relative"); but this exercise is to illustrate that an identifiable zero point of reference, where all come to naught and perhaps even things turn negative (if this is indeed physically possible) is not only helpful, but sometimes so necessary as to be specifically called for - in this case, a point where the entropy (which, by the way, cannot be negative) of a body or a system is reduced to absolutely zero at the point of absolute zero temperature of 0K, and not at some point of un-defined limitlessness; while using the concept of “negative entropy” in this context could be seen as the attempt to achieve by subtraction that what should be reached by division: namely, a reduction of entropy.
Put simply, if you use the (as I propose) unsuited one of two possible solutions to a mathematical equation, you will lose your fixpoint of zero, from which to start - and, at least in thought, be able to return to.
Forever.
And then you simply don't know where you are. All you can say is that a system has gained (or, if at all possible, lost) some amount of entropy.
All of this does not change reality, or the role of gravity in priming the thermodynamics of the universe; reality does not concern itself with its own reflection in the mind of its observers.
It just makes it harder - or perhaps impossible - for the observer to deal with it; for you have to accept that you are adrift and will remain to be so.
And one question remains: Why?
What is gained by doing so? There must be something.
Here' a suggestion: Human psychology.
As in the ‘mpg or gpm’ (or, too, as I suppose in the ancient definition of speed, i.e. time per distance vs. distance per time) debate, there seems to be an agenda for human convenience to be able to compare more easily relative results (more or less time per distance? more or less gasoline per mile?) as opposed to an absolute measurement that seems to need (or produce, or enable, either which way) a zero/zero point of reference by avoiding a division by zero.
But, even in this light, the chosen ratio of energy content / temperature for entropy seems to be inconvenient, as gaining something defined as negative (instead of losing something then positive such as temperature / energy content) in a process (itself seen as positive) seems counter-intuitive as well - but perhaps it is not.
I do not know.
The mpg / gpm comparison:
the mathematically and physically correct depiction of the ratio of miles in respect to gallons for a vehicle is 'miles per gallon' or m/g, since idling or ‘zero miles per gallon’ leads, correctly, to an efficiency of zero; and, leaving out gravity or other outside forces, a consumption of zero gallons per mile is physically - as well as mathematically - impossible,
while with the alternative 'gallons per mile' or g/m, idling at zero miles per hour is impossible to calculate, since the result depends on time, which does not even enter the equation - and a consumption of zero gallons per mile would be mathematically valid, but physically impossible - and the equation can also never be zero
but, so it is said, this arbitrarily chosen ratio 'gallons per mile' or g/m would - mathematically physically incorrect as it is - facilitate, for the human mind, the comparison of fuel consumption per mile per car;
much as the assumed ancient ratio of ‘time per distance’ (hpm, h/m or ‘hours per mile’) for speed: "How long did you take?" - wherein, as in gallons per mile, less is considered to be better than more; as also perhaps in T/Q.
Anyway, it would seem that, up to now,
The idea that gravity is the primary source of almost everything else in the universe - thus turning it into a cosmos - can be arrived at independently
What seems to hinder arriving at that concept is the request for gravity to be able to reduce entropy (here taken as a measure for disorder or potential reduction); theoretically to (near) zero, thus calling for something like absolute zero entropy to exist (at least theoretically) at 0K
This seems difficult to arrive at with entropy defined as Energy / Temperature, but is easily achieved with its equally valid inversion of Temperature / Energy at zero kelvin
This could also eliminate the need for the, so it seems, auxiliary construction of (physically impossible) “negative entropy” to subtract from, and thus reduce, “positive” entropy
It may be that the decision taken by its inventor (or discoverer) Rudolf Clausius to choose Q/T over T/Q as the formula for a new property he called “entropy”:
was for some unknown convenience in calculating the efficiency of the steam engines of the time,
thus preferring it to the “right one” that actually ‘abhors a (mathematical) vacuum’ of a something-to-nothing ratio;
much as perhaps was the possibly primary description of speed as time over distance, or fuel efficiency in liter per 100 kilometers - both of which actually measure the inverse of what they proclaim to do - namely inefficiency and slowness.
And that is just about it.