The Entropy Song

by Peter Miller

There’s no time for explaining
As the conversation falters
And the words all lose their meaning
And the silence is expanding

Everything falls apart in the end.

There are a surprising number of schools of thought about what will eventually happen to the universe in those far reaches of future time that our minds can hardly bear thinking about. Mostly though, those who do contemplate such matters deeply, settle on the probable playing-out of one of two main scenarios.

In one, things will reach a point where the momentum of the Big Bang, that massively energetic genesis of all existence, is overcome by the inherent gravity of the universe, and at that moment the slow expansion of matter and energy, and maybe even time itself, will reverse direction and all the bits will head backwards toward the place in which each started. This is called the Expansion/Contraction Hypothesis.

The other significant conjecture says that the particles and pieces of the universe will slowly keep on expanding forever, gravity being ultimately too weak to pull anything back into its greedy bosom. This will mean that the energy with which all matter was initially charged will eventually dissipate completely, as things slow down to a grinding, sub-icy, pretty much empty, blackness. This state of things is cheerily called Heat Death. The tendency for everything to aspire to reach that moment is called entropy.

Entropy is the irresistible inclination for things to seek the least amount of effort to relate to one another. And it doesn’t matter which of the two above propositions you are inclined to choose. For the expansion part of the process, which is where we are, entropy is in play in either case.

I decided I might try to write a song about Entropy. It seems to me to be the ultimate tragic topic. And tragedy is always a good prospect for a song. It should of course, be in a minor key, but I can’t actually sing it to you because I never got as far as writing the melody.

Now a filament is glowing
And a sediment is forming
There’s a line of thread unwinding
And a spinning atom dying...

Everything falls apart in the end.

Atoms don’t actually spin of course. Well, not in the way we are encouraged to imagine them doing from old cartoons and bad science fiction films. Atoms, like everything else, are in a process of seeking maximum entropy. The tiny bits and pieces that go to make up atoms, the protons and neutrons, the quarks and leptons, the bosons and gluons and mesons and muons and hadrons, are losing all their energy. Maximum entropy requires by its nature a complete lack of order of any kind. When entropy has reached maximum, there is no energy left to impose any kind of structure on anything.

Let me give you an example of the inexorable flow of entropy. Ask the bartender for an ice cube. Drop it into your martini. The ice melts, and soon you can’t see any solid object in your glass except for an olive. What’s happening here is in fact very complex, but put simply, the structure of the ice has been removed at the cost of a decrease in temperature of the martini, and an even slighter decrease in the temperature of the bar you’re in. Strange as this might sound, the entropy of the entire system; the martini, the room and the universe itself has just increased. Only by a little tiny bit, but this is happening all the time, in every action that takes place in our world. We are losing heat. We are slowly getting colder.

Just off on a tangent for a minute, I also like to speculate that there is entropy at work in the realm of good taste, and you have just contributed to the increase of that by putting a chunk of ice in a martini.

But back to science. One of the puzzling things about the idea that the universe is tending towards terminal disorder is a small hiccup that exists, as far as we know, only on one planet in one planetary system in one galaxy in the entire vastness of space.

It is called Life.

The mystery is best expressed like this: if everything is irrevocably driven to fall to pieces; if the dispersal of energy to its minimal state is the ultimate fate of all things, why is it that life seems to do the very opposite?

Consider: in one direction, ice into water, water into vapour and vapour into aimless molecules floating around in the atramentous cold distances of space. In the other, molecules into proteins, proteins into cells, cells into colonies, colonies into embryos, embryos into water buffalos.

If you ascribe to the modes of modern thought it’s certainly a conundrum. What on Earth (because this is the only place we know it takes place for sure) is happening?

Currently, there are two main explanations for this too.

One exists in the realm of religion, and says quite simply, that God is responsible. Even to someone who is a scientist at heart, like me, it looks like a reasonable option when you consider the alternative.

Remember that entropy is the relentless march of the universe towards losing heat as quickly as possible? The fact is that Life costs. Specifically, life costs energy, which is heat. Life costs a lot of heat. Life takes any heat that’s around and sucks it up.

The scientific speculation currently under consideration is that Life is the cleverest way that the universe has come up with so far to lose a lot of heat really fast.

At its core, this idea is magnificently and overpoweringly depressing. When I first read about this grim prospect I remember wondering if that could possibly be the explanation for cuttlefish and cucumbers, orchids and oryxes, butterflies and botulism, lavender and locusts and lizards. Could it be that all these amazing virtuosic improvisations of matter and energy are just the best way to use up heat? Is the cold hard hand of entropy truly such an ambivalent, implacable and invincible force?

That’s something on which you could really build a religion. Or at least something you could write a song about.

She’s vanished in the city
And her scent is disappearing
And there’s lipstick on the mirror
And the memory is fading

Everything falls apart in the end.

After some contemplation I realised that things were in fact probably even worse than they appeared. The scientists who had advanced this idea had not gone far enough with their reasoning. The universe has, in my view, discovered an even better way of using up heat than mere life.

It has evolved intelligent life.

Biologically speaking, acquiring intelligence is the most energy-costly process that life as we know it can undertake. Intelligence means warm-bloodedness. Intelligence means massive burning of oxygen. Intelligence means large protein requirements. Intelligence means social structure. Intelligence needs lots and lots and lots of heat.

If your aim, as a universe under the omnipotent inky thrall of Entropy, is to fritter away a really colossal amount of thermal energy, inventing intelligence is a very effective way of going about it.

Does all this sound too bleak? Guess what? I then thought of an even more effective way to waste heat. It follows that the next best thing after endowing life with mere intelligence, is bestowing upon it the ability to use that intelligence for something entirely frivolous. Something that has no pragmatic value in the scheme of biological things. Something on which cucumbers and water buffalo and even chimpanzees aren’t able squander their heat. Something like writing a song.

Now a pocketwatch is slowing
And a silent gun is smoking
And a body is decaying
And a burning heart is cooling

Everything falls apart in the end.

When I realised what was going on, when I caught this momentary glimpse into the dark frigid heart of Entropy, I knew I must act. It is certain that such a formidable foe cannot be overthrown quickly. Entropy has had too much time to assemble its forces.

No, like all effective revolutions, my war on Entropy would start with one small act of defiance.

And so it is that you discover at last my reason for not having composed a melody for my song. Yes, that’s right; I did it in the spirit of conserving energy. I did it with the intention that this one small rebellious gesture would claw back a moment of time from the ravenous hunger of the tyrant who would steal it from us. Don’t think then that I am merely lazy. Think rather that I have gained a little bit more time to spend with my friends.