Within certain limits, it is not important that something is correct, but that it is useful.
[ Thermodynamics, Gravity and Economics - the A3 Crude Tables and Does a Potato Work page ] [ return home ]
"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can
go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."
40. President of the United States of America
From an economic point of view, the result of human activity is always
zero,
as the assets and liabilities split up in the production process
will always cancel each other out; and physically,
the result is a loss.
So where then
is the profit?
The physical basis of ecology and economics is that all living
beings, humans, machines, and matter movements on the planet's interactive
surface, deplete, according to the laws of thermodynamics at a loss, an energy
potential and entropic gradient which is provided for, and then replenished,
free of charge and for thermodynamic gain, by the force of
gravity.
These processes are sometimes intermixed.
Within certain limits, it is not important that something is correct,
but that it is useful.
It does not matter if something is completely understood theoretically (which in theory it can never be), but only that its effect is recognized. That is the only way a monkey can use a stick as a lever, and it is also the only way humans could employ fire without knowing anything about oxidation, and send an arrow into the target without having any idea of theoretical mechanics. To this day, flat, and thereby necessarily incorrect maps are used to navigate a globe, and no- one gets lost when if they are used correctly.
Similarly, humans have been orientating their lives along the course of the stars above for thousands of years; and their cleverest, on all continents, at all times, have endeavored to trace and predict their paths; but naturally, they succeed only within the framework of their theoretical possibilities.
As long as they proceeded from the assumption of a flat, static, asymmetrical world, and divided it into sectors from their point of view (in the Babylonian- Egyptian European region into divisions of 12, 60, and 360), the result was wrong, but employable; in particular, the calculation of the planetary orbits resulted in completely chaotic reproductions from the point of view of the earth as their theoretical center - although they were quite regular; so regular, in fact, that astronomical phenomena could be predicted, albeit with great difficulty (and so precisely, that unforeseen ones, such as comets and supernovae, were considered harbingers of doom; and quite rightly so, as only the likelihood of catastrophe was unknown).
But it took three theoretical revolutions to send satellite probes onto distant planets. From the subjective, flat (or rather: pyramidical) earth with a fixed "up" and "down" side (which in the universe does not exist, in stark contrast to right and left), first to a three-dimensional sphere (this, incidentally, was done thousands of years ago with admirable precision; but ecclesiastically, and thus morally and socially accepted only since a few hundred years, and finally so only since a few decades); then the idea of a universe with the earth in its center needed to become heliocentric (as a result of which, theoretically non-calculable, varyingly erratic planetary orbits, first, became circles, then, with increasing precision, fluctuating ellipses); then, from a heliocentric world view, to one of a universe with a past big bang in its center, thus changing it from space to time- and who knows how many changes are still to come.
It was possible to navigate within each of these world views; but
not beyond. And every time a sacral edifice, oriented towards the
postulated eternal course of the stars, and thus the society built
according to these calculations, went out of focus because of the
dynamics of the universe, the respective society dissolved; because its
fundamental beliefs, its stability, and thus the justification of its structure
were now in question.
And for precisely the same reason, because neither nature or universe
revolve around man in any way; just as the human-centered, assumption-based,
astrological world view had to become a centerless, observation-based,
astronomical world view (in which not even time is constant
any more), in order to progress; so the human-centered, assumption-based,
economical (actually, ecological) picture of the world must
become a centerless, observation-based new economic view of the world;
in order to escape the eternal cycle of unforeseeable economic events.
As in astrology, the calculations and accounting (which, in addition to the macroeconomic governmental money systems, include the microeconomic, such as the presentation of taxes and levies, the pension payments and so on) in the current economy are inconsistent, confused, baseless, complicated, inscrutable; even experts do not comprehend it (not because they are stupid, but because it is based on false assumptions); and, above all, foreseealbe only to a very limited extent.
Here now is no less than the attempt, as at that time by
Eratosthenes of Cyrene to emerge from a false view of the
world.
[ Wealth Creation vs. Job
Creation ]
Reducing my model to five major points or
theses:
Everything in the universe, and with that everything on Earth, as the existence
of planet Earth itself, can be traced back to gravity in just a few
simple steps.
Could it be simpler?
All matter, by its own gravity, constantly increases its own structure, order,
grading and complexity, thereby providing the complement, rather the
prerequisite, for any thermodynamics. Not the other way around.
This increase in complexity (or reduction of entropy) as the
key element presents itself in three, by now parallel, but consecutive stages,
each one shorter than the one before, and each one accelerating for itself
(a property of all gravitational systems):
So life on earth (or anywhere in space) is not a frighteningly unlikely
coincidence, contradictory to all natural laws of decline and dissolution,
but simply a result of 13 billion years of creative physical influence by
the gravity of matter upon itself. As well as is every dead planet, and the
entire cosmos in its present form.
Everything else is just a statistical probability, not a coincidence - "There are no coincidences". Just as there are no real contradictions - one of the assumptions involved is wrong (Ayn Rand).
In one sentence:
In the course of 13 billion years, the matter of the universe transformed
itself, by its own gravity, and over several levels, from a dead cloud of
hydrogen gas or plasma partially into living, self- sensitive matter- and
that's just the last step in this place at that time.
---------
Is that important?
The planet does not care why it is. People do, and that has consequences.
Until the invention of the steam engine, all humanity was of the opinion of being created or descended from a god or several supernatural gods - supernatural because, logically, man was not able to create man and certainly not the rest of the world, from which man depends upon in prosperity and ruin.
This view has lost its value in the industrialized world, the more people were capable of mastering nature. Man, ideologically, was transformed more and more from creature to creator, now even of his own self; that too has consequences.
Industrialization has already allowed two world wars, in which humans were pit against their own mechanical creations. Anecdotally, the machines won and as a result are now taking over the world.
The theoretical penetration of thermodynamics 150 years ago had a share not to be underestimated in this new image of man as creator - which on the one hand allowed humans to become more and more powerful, on the other hand, however, depicted their existence, together with that of their planet which they were now controlling, as an inexplicable, accidental and incalculable whim of nature, in a cosmos that was becoming less and less logical; the more science advanced, the more the result became ever more esoteric, contradictory and confusing.
What now if the theory contains an error? Then all that changes. If the assumed theoretical flaw is sufficiently basic and primary, if it for example is based on a mathematically or physically unfounded and sufficiently false definition of entropy, then man, at least according to this description, returns from creator to creature again.
And that has consequences as well.
"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." - Ayn Rand
My pleasure!
Comments on point:
1: This is undisputed, as far as I know.
2: Highly controversial. Science is divided on how to exactly define
entropy,
depending on its purpose.
For the sake of the arguments provided here, (low) entropy will be defined
as a measure of complexity, gradient, and potential;
the nuclear transformation of hydrogen to helium alone then is proof of the
entropy- lowering effect of gravity, as would be the reduction and separation
of carbon and hydrogen oxide (or mineral water) to carbohydrates and free
oxygen via
photosynthesis
(effective of the gravity of the Sun), or similar processes via
chemosynthesis
(effective of the gravity of the Earth).
3: My thesis; the general opinion of science on this is unknown to
me.
It seems almost to not have been looked for very seriously yet. Usually,
the debate stops short at "the Sun" as a "source of all earthly
energy", but goes no further; thus ignoring (not only) the energy that
the Earth itself provides.
4: A consequence of points 1 - 3; as everything else, life is only
a special form of what is.
Living tissue, as all else, except for perhaps the existence of matter itself,
is a chain consequence of gravity.
Just as gravity creates a mix of increasingly complex atoms out of
simpler ones in the center of the stars, the lesser gravitational forces
in the region of their satellites generate ever more complex molecules
through chemical reaction, once pressure and temperature fall below the
values necessary for serial condensation - first exothermic (oxidation...)
then endothermic (reduction...); first loaded, then fed
by the energy generated through the nearby centers of gravity.
5. A consequence of points 1 - 4; applies to all forms of energy
conversion, of which the human economy is only a special area.
More to point 5:
Thus to the contrary, point 5 states:
BTW:
Plants do perform work. They move large masses of matter against
strong forces by burning carbohydrates produced with sunlight via
photosynthesis.
However, plants are a secondary form of life. Life was before
plants; and even today, primary and secondary life goes on in lightless deep-
sea volcanic areas via a process aptly named
chemosynthesis.
- - - - - - - - -
To put it as brutally as possible:
In my opinion,
Marx
was utterly wrong when, around 1867, he stated that all profit
stems from human labour; but all others were too, for he was not alone
in this assumption.
Even his sworn enemies still today postulate the economic profit of human
labour; their only fight with their counterparts is over the proper allocation
of that purely arithmetic cookbook profit - and, more importantly, the allocation
of the clandestine debt hidden deep within the recipe.
They were, and are, wrong on two counts: one, that human labour
is the (sole) source of profit, as opposed to that of animals or machines;
two, that this profit exists at all.
Humans, animals, or machines all produce a loss through any
action; this loss, if not compensated for by gravity, is then
hidden somewhere to produce a faux and faked profit.
Were it otherwise, industrialization would not have taken place.
Strangest is the fact that this idea of "profit through human labour"
caught on the very instant mills began harnessing outside power,
then steam engines began to outperform both humans and animals;
yet no- one ever thought of allocating profit to an object, inanimate or
not; only to its owner.
It may have been nothing more than some thought of compensation for
expropriation.
Furthermore:
If two people pay each other for goods & services, they won't earn any
money - their cheques (or i.o.u.'s) will just keep bouncing back and
forth ("circulating" between two people).
And raising the number of participants has no effect on this inside game.
As a story in a comic strip called "Lucky Luke" once told of a Chinese
town in the West, its inhabitants had decided to go, evenly, into one of
two businesses; laundry shops and restaurants. Their idea was, of course,
to thereby live clean and satisfied lives for ever after. Instead,
they could not afford each other's services, and were dying dirty and
hungry - until our hero Lucky Luke cajoled a horde of equally dirty and
hungry cowboys into town, who brought in outside money and saved the day
for everyone.
Funny as it is, it's wise as well.
The Chinese town inhabitants could not survive on themselves, because
any economic activity produces a net loss: food is consumed;
as is heat for water and soap, to name just a few.
The waste of this activity is then, hopefully, washed out of town by the
river running through, polluting it on the way and depleting resources for
ever by taking them into the sea. To compensate, 'outside' money has
to come 'in' to purchase new resources as replacement from 'somewhere
else'.
However, in a global economy there is no 'outside' money, nor are
there 'outside' resources. Global resources have to be replenished
in situ by something non- monetary, non- thermodynamic
and non- economic:
I. e. gravity.
- - - - - - - - -
Now, for the physical side of things.
According to wonderful Wikipedia, the concept of entropy was introduced
by Rudolf Julius Emanuel
Clausius,
a German physicist and mathematician.
"In 1865, Clausius gave the first mathematical version of the concept
of entropy, and also gave it its name... He used the now abandoned unit
'Clausius' (symbol: Cl) for entropy. (1)
1 Clausius (Cl) = 1 calorie/degree Celsius
(cal/°C) = 4.1868 joules per Kelvin (J/K)
The landmark 1865 paper in which he introduced the concept of entropy ends
with the following summary of the first and second laws of thermodynamics:
The energy of the universe is constant. (2)
The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. (3)"
But why is it so difficult to calculate, let alone to measure entropy
in any meaningful way or manner, and is it so fraught with exceptions,
caveats, definitions, restrictions and special
cases?
In my opinion, it could be that Clausius misinterpreted the physical
dimension of entropy in 1865.
Interestingly, both possible mistakes (by Marx and
Clausius respectively) would then have been made very much at around
the same time, 1865/67, about 100 years after the invention of the steam
engine; and moreover, both had to do with it.
Both Clausius and Marx wanted to theoretically understand the
effect of running a steam engine, one physically and one as a means
of production; Clausius as a physicist and Marx as an
economist.
Both could have made a similar mistake, by viewing something the
wrong way around; Marx by ignoring the inherent loss
of the work process (energy and resource consumption), Clausius
by naming something as positive which is inherently negative
(entropy).
And things went on from there.
NOTE:
This begs two questions:
These are mathematical conditions, not physical ones.
May it not have been a sign error, but an inversion by choice
after all?
Back in 1865, these were the very beginnings of the understanding of
thermodynamics; and Wikipedia and others tread, very, very carefully,
by Jove! around the question WHY Clausius defined the new
and hitherto unknown physical quantity of entropy as Q/T and not,
say, T/Q.
Never mind the confusion of naming something as negative as "disorder"
with a positive expression, thereby forcing the positive expression to be
negative - "negative entropy" as in "negative disorder" or
order.
So let's just assume
that way back then, an esteemed scientist named Clausius tentatively
noticed a relationship between two physical quantities in the new field of
thermodynamics concerning that very practical steam engine, where almost
every definition was still unbelievably hazy; he had a 50/50 chance of getting
it the right way around, and, just by chance, missed it.
Now, in science, anyone who comes up with something new has the patent,
so to speak; it has to be plausible, yes, but it does not have to be proven
right very much beyond that; in fact, the others have to prove it wrong.
This typically takes one or two generations, or 60 - 120 years; as scientific
generations come along with hoards of disciples and scholars, with very vested
interests. Einstein's revolution of physics would have been the perfect chance
to right all wrongs; unfortunately, the scientific community was, at that
time, involved in blowing one another up with utmost efficiency.
And if they perhaps slowly began to realize that this entropy thing might
be a bit wrong in theory and dimension, maybe in some controversies decades
later ongoing, I could guess they didn't want to rewrite everything they
had already written on the subject, and get everyone & everything all
horribly confused, so they quietly dropped the unit as useless and left it
at that, hoping that as X/Y = 1/Y/X, they could handle it
mathematically, as this was all extremely theoretical stuff anyway - or so
they thought.
Unfortunately, 1 liter makes sense, but 1/liter is a useless expression.
Reality is a bitch... you cannot express volume in 1/liter or measure 1/volumeth
by 1/liter without completely messing things up, and in consequence ripping
an ever- widening hole in the time- space continuum, raising
Cthulhu
and causing chaos to reign in the process of going mad - especially once
you find out that you are not dealing with something marginal that you can
frame at will, but the effective, glowing CORE of all being.
Of course, you can always use J/K to express or compare a certain amount
of S, as in 2,4x10³ J/K or any conversion thereof.
But it still seems like they want to (very successfully!) deter you from
doing so and hide the fact that S = Q/T makes no real sense, and
cannot be expressed as some measurable quantity as in
"x J/K" will have twice the effect of "x/2 J/K".
And so you will find very few concrete and public calculations of
entropy on the net... and indeed, there are controversies about whether
it can be measured at all.
So let's just further assume
that if someone defines a new physical quantity you can
measure, and a unit you can express it in, but then
his colleagues go on to scrap the unit, while continuing to calculate
the quantity under multiple definitions, names &
combination of units - well, there seems to be something amiss.
I have no idea if this is the case or even a viable thought; but it may be
that the concept of entropy could be in for a major revision, perhaps a new
definition.
So, just for the exercise, let us re- define entropy as
"untropy" Su = T/Q (Ugh).
If T approaches 0, T/Q now approaches 0, independent of Q.
This results in the following changes of the above:
When its temperature was extremely high in the beginning? Could be. Or perhaps
in the end, if it collapses. Who knows, who cares, we now have a long way
to go.
The untropy of objects such as the Sun and Earth or
a can of gasoline could quite easily be calculated and measured in
"Ugh", by dividing its momentary temperature by its energy content
- if that makes any sense:
("Temperature per Unit of Energy" - seems so...)
"x K/J" will then indeed have twice the effect of "x/2 K/J" - or 2
Ugh (K/J) have twice the effect of 1 Ugh (K/J) - probably true,
whatever it may mean.
If you burn the can of gasoline, or run an engine on it, the overall
untropy in the surroundings will rise, because the overall
temperature T rises, while the First Law of Thermodynamics sees to
it that Q stays the same.
So, nothing changes there; the laws governing thermodynamics are safe.
So, zero untropy being defined as a condition prevailing at
T = 0 K is perfectly fine. At 0 K, any energy content
is irrelevant. That sounds Ok...
At any temperature above 0 K, the energy content Q must be high for
the untropy to be low.
Low untropy means high energy potential? That sounds Ok as well...
There seem to be no exceptions and conditions and caveats here...
Everything falls into place...
- - - - - - - - -
So, with this new quantity in mind, let's have a qualitative look
at the workings of gravity again, shall we?
A cloud of hydrogen the size of a solar system and a mean temperature of
around 0 K collapses and forms a star. The energy content Q is now higher.
The temperature T, formerly near 0 K, now is higher as well.
Is Su2 = T2/Q2 (after collapse) <|> Su1 = T1/Q1
(before collapse)?
If you set Su to T/Q, something very strange happens. The untropy
within the space taken up by the cloud is already near 0, as T is near 0.
Now the mean temperature T within that space increases as it empties, being
very hot in a very small concentrated center but staying near 0 K in
the outskirts of that solar system; and empty space has no temperature anyway.
Increasing T, however slightly, increases untropy Su.
But how high is Q? That is up for debate; but as the hydrogen cloud collapses,
billions of tons begin to dislocate and move towards their center of gravity,
steadily raising their energy level until the release of nuclear energy may
occur; Q is increased as well. Increasing Q lowers untropy Su.
Which factor will have the upper hand? The race is on. But one thing is clear:
under these premises, the untropy of a dark and cold cloud of hydrogen
gas or plasma is already very low at the beginning, and gravitational
collapse tends not so much to lower untropy but to preserve
that original state of low untropy while increasing the energy level
of the system.
It may yet be that untropy is only viable where energy release or
conversion takes place; simple heat transfer may not suffice.
This outcome of a mathematical manipulation is very strange indeed.
- - - - - - - - -
But the overall concept even has a philosophical or theological
aspect:
What people do, what physicists do, with all respect, is totalitarian:
they would like to ensnare everything that humans have ever thunk into one,
single, all- encompassing Theory of Everything.
The trouble is, humans just keep on thinking, to be "as God" - and
that already went wrong at least once before.
Now, looking for the Source of Everything is quite the opposite. Once
you have the source, the quest is over - no matter what follows next.
It just keeps on unfolding. Like so, for instance:
So far, so good.
The universe is not symmetric!
And that freedom alone is quite overwhelming.
I have put it here to show that, while the laws of thermodynamics rule, there
may be more to it than meets the eye.
The Author of the site I took it from writes:
The track cyclists's trick"Sometimes a cyclist can overtake another one only by letting himself be carried far up the steep curve, to then gain speed on the way down. This is so widely known by athletes that nobody thinks very much about it.
Dr. Werner Klein has nevertheless made the effort to examine this effect more closely in the periodical 'Physics in our Time' 1998/2. In my opinion, this is the first actual proof that there is more at work here than the law of conservation of energy, although, contrary to all other opinions, this is expressedly not violated by it."
And he asks:
"What, if not Energie, has caused the goal to be reached in shorter time?"
This simple machine, which converts potential energy into kinetic energy,
does not break the rules of thermodynamics, but shows that taking a detour
through even a slight gravitational dip will conspicuously save time - even
though in sum, no extra energy is gained or consumed.
The detour saves time, not energy - space is crossed in shorter time by taking a longer route at a given energy consumption. The end speed is obviously the same. In simple mechanics, one should expect exactly the opposite - or should one?
A longer route in shorter time means higher average speed -
which is acheived here with the same energy potential.
See for yourself by clicking on the picture or
here:
This experiment was taken from the site
http://www.hcrs.at/KUGEL.HTM,
where it is explained and put into context with more descriptions, including
an excel-spreadsheet (all in German).
- so someone said.
So let us combine both in some thought experiment,
and consider the field of mechanical energy storage and
recovery - a process that is reversible in
principle 1.
First to the dynamic realm:
The lake of a pumped storage power station is filled, with the help of a defined amount of energy E (+HL1, the inevitable heat loss) 2; when emptying, the same amount of energy E is recovered (-HL2, the again inevitable loss of heat).
So, the same amount of energy (minus the waste heat not to be converted) was employed, then recovered; the difference is zero; and with the water back in its former place, the original state is indeed restored. In the meantime, however, tons of water were moved. By what? Is not the amount of energy consumed zero? And was not the water moved upwards, against gravity, half of the time and distance?
Now to the static realm:
A pendulum is deflected and swings (almost) up to the same height on the other side (again, the loss is not recoverable). The potential energy of the pendulum is now the same as before; however, the mass of the pendulum is now in another place. How did it get there? Because again, half of the time (and distance) the pendulum was moved upwards, against gravity.
Both processes correspond to the oscillating of the balance wheel in a mechanical
clock.
Of course, there are valid explanations 3; but the matter becomes really remarkable when one considers that both of these processes do not work in weightlessness; outside of a gravitational field there is no (mechanical) potential energy; so a pendulum stays put in any position.
On the other hand, if you accelerate a bucket of (of course frozen) water
in a certain direction in weightlessness, not only will you be accelerated
in the opposite direction; as with a bowling ball on a ping-pong table or
boat on a lake, you will need additional energy to reverse and catch up with
the bucket drifting off in the opposite direction - without, on balance,
being able to benefit from its energy.
So, as it seems, this type of mechanical energy storage
and recovery is only possible within range of a gravitational
field 4.
[Other, secondary ones, of course are, such as electrical, chemical,
compressed-air- or spring- loaded.]
But it goes on:
Even more important is the energy-producing and
entropy-destroying effect of gravity:
A rock in the universe, with its absolute place and velocity indeterminate(*), has in itself, neither kinetic nor potential energy, only mass; if, however, a planet approaches it with its gravitational field, it may accelerate the chunk to a speed higher than its own; the formerly energy-free stone now possesses both forms of mechanical energy, and this even increasingly so, in relation to the other's center of gravity.
And when it hits, thermal energy is generated: several thousand degrees
are created in place of a former temperature close to absolute zero. And
all of this without the use of outside energy; all this energy, up
to then, was simply not there before.
Could it be that here, right before our very eyes and yet unnoticed, a mystery
has its solution, namely the unconditional emergence from nothing,
the source of all being beyond a cloud of hydrogen, as well as the
energy that energizes the existing, and ultimately allows life within
it?
And is this newly formed energy, whose movement (and compulsory disorder and loss) generating laws are so well known, at the same time, albeit to varying degrees, inextricably intertwined with its origin, the likewise energetic and orderly acting, creative gravity?
Is this the end of the search for the fountain of youth, the source of all life? Even if eternal renewal can not proceed without eternal destruction, because nothing is lost in the universe, but always has to be recreated anew.
* 1) Newton's first law of motion, known as 'The Law of Inertia', states that objects at rest, and objects moving in a straight line, are equivalent; not moving at all and moving in a straight line are one and the same thing, and cannot be discerned; it is impossible to tell if an object is standing still or moving in a straight line; this depends on the frame of reference.
2) Matter is passive and inert; it can only be influenced from the outside. Objects cannot move by themselves: "If nothing happens, nothing happens."
- So how can living beings move?
Read more:
On Minds: 10 points on creation in the universe, ongoing
as it is.
On
(they have difficulty on some applications, as it would seem)
© JHR 01/2005
Last revised:
23.05.2019
