ENTROPY
I had intended to put more content in this blog but focusing on other things through the course of the year overshadowed that intent :-) .
I had mentioned a talk I had given at Hillside, a small independent church in Boulder which I had the pleasure of attending for many years. The church might be characterized as a small group of people in the community with a focus more on the Bible than on the doctrines of organized religion. At least that was my impression -- actually quite an amazing thing, as the words of Jesus sometimes get lost as organized churches find themselves following other agendas.
At Hillside, we had a tradition where someone would get up and give a talk. These talks were reflections that had a personal touch -- often as inspiring and meaningful to me as the sermons, and many of which I remember fondly to this day. When I was asked, my first reaction was always fear -- as an introvert, the thought of getting up and talking about something personal and deep-felt is accompanied by all sorts of anxieties -- how I'll perform, what kinds of judgments might happen, whether people will understand, or relate, etc. But the few times I did it, I was challenged immensely, but then found it rewarding.
Anyway, I was asked about this particular talk after I had brought it up in conversation. I went looking through old Windows backups from about that time period, thinking I would cringe at my own words once I found it. But when I finally did find it, I found I still kind of liked it, and found that it brought back fond memories of my time at Hillside.
The whole talk was inspired by a sign that was on a partition in the gym where our church had rented space. I forget the words exactly -- it was something like "don't throw objects -- it will damage the wall". That got me to thinking about the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), and out of that, my talk emerged. (This is also a look back through time, by the way, memories and computer technology most of us have forgotten by now :-) ): Finally it reflects on my favorite Bible passage -- Revelation 21.
Anyway, this is the talk:
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Hillside 7/28/2001: "Entropy"
I thought I’d describe a day in my life at work. And just to fill things out, a day in the life
of Isaac Newton, and a day in the life of our Cocker Spaniel dog, Abby.
A day in the life of Abby
I was feeling guilty for confining her for so many hours, so I decided to try to find something fun for dogs to do along the way. And Abby had never been to a lake. So we stopped by a lake where I knew they allowed dogs thinking that Abby would love to swim. I grabbed a book to read, and we sat on the shore – a dozen other dogs were leaping around in the water, chasing each other on the shore, and generally having a great time. It was about a hundred degrees, so I encouraged Abby to get in the water and join them. Abby looked at me, and then looked at the lake and got this really serious expression. From her perspective it was as large as an ocean. But instead of seeming like a place where she could play, she looked across the expanse of water, bent over, and started drinking from the little bit of water lapping against the shore. To her, it was the world’s largest water dish, and I imagined that she wondered how in the world she was ever going to drink that much water
A day in the life of Isaac Newton
In college, when I was a student assistant at NCAR, we had three of us sharing an office – and to try to personalize our space a little bit, and to describe that space to anyone walking by, we put a sign on the door that read “Entropy Lab RL6-404”.
I wasn’t good at Physics in college, but in the 1660’s, Isaac Newton was at Cambridge studying, and in fact advancing Physics. Many people know about the story when Cambridge was closed due to the plague, and he was at his farm, saw an apple on the ground, and came up with gravitational theory in a flash of inspiration.
Not as many people know that Newton also thought about Entropy.
As students we defined entropy more in terms of the tendency for things to become disordered – like our office. Newton’s definition really only talked about energy states in the Universe. That is, the Universe is progressing towards an increasingly homogenous state where all that’s left of matter and energy is heat. The implication of that is that everything in the Universe that is organized – everything that has substance – takes energy to achieve that organization. And as the Universe’s energy equals out, and becomes heat, that organization disappears.
I can imagine a scene where Newton is contemplating this – perhaps observing not apples, but broken branches on the ground after one of England’s windstorms. Certainly if he wrote his theory of gravity in a flash of inspiration – he probably wrote his second theory of thermodynamics, about entropy, in a flash of – well, depression.
In spite of the second law of thermodynamics – in spite of entropy – in spite of the fact that his hair turned gray before he was 30, Isaac Newton went on – and he achieved much more once Cambridge reopened. In fact, he was described by the Bishop as a devout, serious, hard-working, and moral man, and went on to be one of the greatest scientists of Western history.
His being able to go on in spite of this depressing discovery is sort of like Abby drinking from the lake. Neither got overly discouraged – neither thought about the enormity of their tasks – Newton just carried on, and Abby just drank.
A day in my life at NCAR
As I wake up in the morning, I have a wonderful feeling of well-being that all is well with the world – well, at least with our network. I of course have learned long ago not to indulge too heavily in those unrealistic thoughts.I arrive at work, discover that a brownout from the thunderstorm of the previous evening has knocked out half of our systems, and the other half are all thrashing the network trying to reestablish contact with those that are down.
So as one of the servers comes on line – it does a disk check which looks like it’s going to take a couple of hours. I leave that to run, but can’t do much on the local network since everything depends on that server.
We have a visitor who needs a PC with Linux and Windows. I get a Deskpro from storage but the disk is too small. So I pull a 9 Gigabyte disk out of a dead PC. I put the disk in, start the computer, but the bios on the mainboard is from an age when nobody was thought disks could be larger than 4GB. I go to Compaq’s site on the web, grab the firmware update for the bios, put it on a floppy, take the floppy to the PC, go to install the update, and the computer won’t read the floppy. After a little bit of diagnosis I discover that we need another floppy drive. I get that, but it won’t fit in the enclosure – they make a different type of enclosure for floppies now.
I take the case apart, and attach the floppy drive loosely, and get the system to boot the firmware disk. So feeling a sense of accomplishment I check on the server. I walk into the server room, and find that the air conditioning has failed as a result of the power hit. The temperature is about 90, and the server shut down in the middle of its boot due to the heat.
So I call Facilities and open the doors to the room to cool it. I start up the server again and go to work on the PC some more. In order to run X-Windows, I have to have a better video card. So I put in a 4MB Matrox card and it fails – this time with smoke.
Fortunately it’s an old spare, and I have a 16MB nVidia card. I put that in, and reboot, and get beeps telling me something is wrong with the system, but it won’t tell me why. After checking the server which is still rebooting, I get on the web, go to Compaq’s site, and find that this type of Deskpro is no longer supported – and there is no technical information on what the beep codes mean. So I resort to newsgroups. I have to flash the bios with yet another version of the firmware so that it can recognize video cards that have more than 4MB of RAM. It takes so much time to figure this out, that by this time our server has booted.
So the Linux install goes well, but Windows 2000 needs 128MB of RAM and I only have 32MB in the system. I find out that it’s too old to support RIMM memories or even the DIMM memories. So while I’m on a site that sells legacy SIMMs, the PC shuts itself off without any reason.
I open the case, and it’s about 150 degrees inside. The power supply fan has failed, and even after replacing the power supply, the PC won’t boot. Fortunately it’s an old Pentium Pro manufactured in ’96 – so I put it in the dead computer pile, and find another PC to set up for the visitor. The pile now fills up about half of my office.
Anyway, that describes a day at NCAR.
According to one of those Miers Briggs temperament profile tests, I don’t multitask well and shouldn’t be a Systems Administrator. But on days in which I manage to bring a computer back to life I’m rewarded with a great sense of power -- I’ve defeated Entropy – the most powerful and certain force in the Universe.
But it’s really an illusion. Entropy and decay are all around us, especially in the I.T. business. Computers cost thousands of dollars at the beginning of their life, and within a few short years you can’t give them away.
There was an expression after the Titanic went down – “all ships sink”. People understood Entropy. Roman Engineers built structures that could stand for 2000 years, but today they are but fragile reminders of that Empire which itself slowly disappeared 1500 years ago.
Things break.
Your hair gets gray like Isaac Newton’s. Nobody wants to play football in a stadium that’s 35 years old. Video tapes decay and become unviewable after 10 or 15 years, even if you have the right kind of equipment. Photos loose their color after 30 or 40 years. Movies and books become forgotten.
This wall will get damaged.
CD-ROMs will only last a century. The Boulder Turnpike already needs to be resurfaced
after only 5 years. The Crossroads Mall expansion in 1981 is now the only part of the mall that anyone wants to use.
Nothing that man creates lasts.
So when I fix computer systems, I feel like Abby drinking from the lake – it’s a futile effort, but somehow I work on our computer systems, hoping to give each one a year or two of extra life.
A day with God
But to look at the day with an awareness of God transforms it.
It isn’t Entropy – it’s Creation that I see when I step out of the house in the morning.
The previous evening’s storm has left behind a cool morning, and everything smells washed and cleansed from the rain. In the deepest blue sky waiting for the dawn, Mars, Venus, and the crescent moon are perfectly lined up – and as the sky becomes light, Mars, which is near its closest point to the Earth remains brilliant next to the moon as the other stars quietly disappear.
On days where I am aware of God, I’m also aware of God’s continuing miracles and blessings. For instance, I’m blessed to come home in the evening to Sherrie, and to have little Daniel look at me and make all kinds of smiley faces because he’s glad I’m there.
My life is not a Zen type contentment by any stretch. It’s often chaotic and frantic, and when things break down at home or at work, it’s tremendously frustrating.
But there’s a lot of joy in knowing that Entropy is not an absolute, irreversible process. What God created moves through time towards eternity because of God. Left on its own, it would return to the chaotic void from which it started. The things we know – computers, and football stadiums, malls and empires, lakes, the Moon and Mars will all die away with time. But out of his mercy, God offers us a life in a newly created eternal world described by John in Revelation:
“a new heaven and a new earth .. the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’
And wherever we live with God in those promised times to come, there can be no entropy – no decay, no disappointment, and as Jeff pointed out a couple of weeks ago, nothing broken. Fishing nets will remain untorn. And it will be a place where nobody will have to be a Systems Administrator – where no trees fall due to the wind – where dogs get to play in the surf, and where God’s love and creation is eternal and sure.
