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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

It's also picking on a particularly difficult area. The "second law of thermodynamics" is actually extremely subtle. In its original formulation it's basically a big mess talking about energy flows. In its simple/elegant/modern form, it relies on an understanding of this crazy thing called "entropy" which is measured like energy but isn't, and which gets pushed with an "intuitive" interpretation that is anything but ("disorder" ... is a measurable thing with numbers associated with it?!).

Frankly if you take a bunch of actual physics students out of the crowd immediately after having taken their final exam in statistical mechanics and ask them that same question, my guess is you'd only see about 50% of them give a confident and correct answer.

So... yeah. If you instead ask a bunch of random people "can anyone explain the idea of conservation of energy?" (the first law, of course), you're going to do much better.

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Is the plot of Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet not as subtle or layered as to provoke the exact same analysis?

You could describe it in a sentence or two, or you could write a book explaining why the typical summary misses out on the subtle details that really make it so interesting.

Yeah but the question was whether you read any of those plays, not whether you can provide detailed analysis or explain it.

It is not that hard to understand that a broken glass won't mend itself spontaneously

No, but understanding that fact is at most a naive and useless understanding the second law of thermodynamics. It's the numbers in there that make it a scientific "law". And a numeric understanding of entropy is totally bananas.

For some definition of useless, I suppose. Without trying to be contrary, most of what I (we) know is 'useless' in terms of whether my knowing it has a "useful" impact on my life. Knowing that there's an equation governing gravitational attraction doesn't really impact my life experientially. It's true that if you're trying to design any system that involves a Carnot cycle, it becomes useful, but given no such job description, it's not 'useful' information. Much of science _is_ useful in our STEM-oriented world, to those using it.

I think some of the reality is that regardless of most other factors in our lives, love and relationships are a Big Deal, so stories in that realm have in some small way more usefulness. Thus, I know the plot of Romeo and Juliet better than I can give a summary of the Second Law.

If you asked people "Will a broken glass mend itself spontaneously?", they will all get it correct. That's not the sort of question people fail to be able to answer. The sort of thing question people fail to be able to answer is "What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics?".

Yes, but a broken glass has much less entropy than an intact glass at a slightly higher temperature.

Lots of people just don’t have the brainpower to be comfortable with abstract physical or mathematical concepts. Nearly everyone can understand a love story.

Isn't part of the point of Romeo and Juliet that it's not a love story? Romeo and Juliet thought they were in love but they really were hormonal teens who knew each other for only two days. My understanding is that's the purpose of Romeo's initial infatuation with Rosaline; it shows that he's really just someone in love with the idea of being in love.

Potato potato

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