On Entropy

[cjwatson]

ghoti said that she'd challenged people on Facebook to come up with a poem explaining the Second Law of Thermodynamics and entropy, and unaccountably nobody had produced anything; so I thought I'd have a go. Feedback welcome!

On Entropy

Two systems, both unlike in temperature,
Each separate in space, though not by much;
When close, the hotter leaves its signature
By warming up the colder with its touch.

Now heat is work, the poets say, and more,
That work brings order; so dispersing heat
Brings entropy, disorder, to the fore
Increasing, which will sun and stars defeat.

Just as a glass, once broken, does not mend,
And mountains cannot unerode from sands,
The laws of chance say chaos is the end,
Time's arrow's fletched by entropy's own hands.

The colder cannot warm the warmer heart;
Thus irreversible is nature's art.

Comments

[cjwatson]

*bow*