Thermodynamics and the State of the World

By Shlomo Maital  

       The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases with time.  Entropy is lack of order or predictability; or gradual decline into disorder.

        What does that have to do with the state of the world? 

        At present, entropy is the defining word.  Disorder.  Trump wins the presidency in the US and threatens mayhem.  Russia drags North Korean soldiers to the front in Ukraine. Iran threatens Israel with drones, rockets and who knows what. The Gaza/Lebanon War drags on.  (This morning, many Israelis again were sent to bomb shelters).  In Amsterdam, crowds of angry Muslims assault Israelis there for a basketball game; several are injured.  China employs ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’, challenging US leadership.  Israel’s PM fires the defense minister in the midst of an existential war and appoints a party hack in his place.

            The entropy list is long and broad and deep. 

             It does seem that at the moment, entropy is not only increasing in the world, but soaring, spiking.

              So?

              Can we take comfort in knowing that entropy is not all bad.  Static.  Frozen order.  Nothing really good comes from a system that is unchanging; it isn’t broken but it is not so great either. 

                 Our world system is broken.  Including democracy.  But out of the entropy, there will emerge a new dynamic functional order.  This happened in July 1944, when at Bretton Woods the US and its allies reinvented the global economic and financial system, in the midst of a terrible war.  It will happen again.  The process is painful – entropy is awfully stressful, especially when our perspective is day-to-day and we only see the tips of our noses, if that. 

                  Good will emerge from the world entropy that prevails today.  And as the Book of Genesis notes, in the very first sentences,  the world emerged from chaos.  Disruption is a vital component of world-changing hi-tech and innovation.  It is not always a good thing.  But sometimes, incredibly good things do emerge.

         Can we take some comfort in this?