Chapter 576: The Theorem of Entropy Increase
As of now, the High Tower Wizards possessed one Legendary Immortal Wizard, two Mythical Wizards, and a double-digit number of Epic Wizards.
If speaking in the terms of the Kaya World, the High Tower Wizards could completely establish a pantheon of their own. Of course, for wizards, there was no need; the wizards already had the Magic Council and the Supreme Council. There was no need to imitate the tradition of the Kaya gods and establish a pantheon.
The emergence of the Law of Conservation of Energy caused many wizards who believed in the “vital force” theory to die from exploding heads. But another portion of the “vital force” wizards refined their theory. They believed that the core of vital force was mana—mana that no one had yet been able to explain.
“Mana must certainly and inevitably be a kind of energy. Through casting spells, we can convert mana into mechanical energy, elemental energy, electromagnetic energy, light energy, and so on. I believe mana is a universal energy. It is just an extremely unique energy with an exceptionally high positional sequence, but ultimately, it is a kind of energy.”
In the hall of the Central High Tower, Thomas spoke with absolute certainty.
Some wizards raised objections. An older wizard said loudly: “Mechanical work produces mechanical energy, elemental reactions produce elemental energy. Mechanical work and elemental reactions can be converted with electrical energy, and electrical energy can be converted into light energy, with some heat loss in the process. There is no problem with this set of theories. But what about mana?
“Where is our mana placed?
“Mana can be converted into the ones just mentioned through spellcasting, but those cannot be reversely converted into mana! Therefore, I believe the scope of energy conservation is limited to ordinary energy. Mana is an exception, indicating your theory has limitations.”
After hearing this argument, Thomas didn’t rush to refute it. He nodded and said: “We indeed have not observed the phenomenon of other energies converting into mana. But regarding mana itself, mana can be converted from low quality to high quality, as long as some consumption is made. It can even reach the level of ‘Divine Essence,’ equivalent to the Source Power of the Great Source.
“In other words, the internal system of mana also obeys the Law of Conservation of Energy. As for whether mana and other energies are conserved, I believe it can be inferred that they are; it’s just that we haven’t discovered it yet.”
Returning to Betty’s Wizard Tower, Thomas said to Donna: “I suddenly thought of a possibility. Could mana be like a high-temperature gas, and ordinary energy like a low-temperature gas? When high-temperature gas converts to low-temperature gas, it is a very natural process. But to reverse this process, I’m afraid heating from outside the system is required.”
Donna, who was conducting an experiment, replied: “Are you talking about a steam engine?”
Thomas said in agreement: “Yes, somewhat similar to a steam engine. A steam engine uses steam as motive power to push a piston back and forth. Could the energy operation model of our world be compared to a steam engine? There are two cylinders, let’s call them Cylinder A and Cylinder B.
“When the temperature in Cylinder A is high, the piston moves towards Cylinder B, and vice versa. In this process, if you want to make the piston move towards A, you must condense Cylinder A from outside the system!”
Donna understood Thomas’s meaning. She lowered her voice and said: “You mean that the ‘temperature’ of other energies is lower than mana, so they cannot be converted back into mana. To convert them into mana, either the outside must ‘heat’ the other energies, or the mana must cool down, becoming ‘colder’ than the other energies, and then the other energies will become mana.”
Thomas slapped his thigh and said: “That’s exactly what I mean.”
Donna suddenly said very mysteriously: “This theoretical hypothetical model is very interesting, but it’s just a conjecture. I actually thought of another aspect, regarding thermodynamics.”
Thomas urged somewhat anxiously: “What aspect? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
With a wave of Donna’s hand, mana pulsed, quickly forming a holographic image. A cutaway of a cylinder, with a piston in the middle, gas inside, and a heavy weight on top of the piston.
“Suppose there is such an ideal state: there is no friction between the piston and the cylinder, the cylinder can be completely adiabatic (thermally insulated) when necessary, the gas inside the cylinder is composed of independent molecules, will not become solid or liquid with changes in pressure and temperature, and will not undergo chemical reactions.”
Thomas looked at the cutaway holographic cylinder image, deep in thought.
Donna continued: “First is an isothermal heat absorption process. The piston moves upward, the cylinder volume increases, and it absorbs heat from the outside to maintain a constant temperature. Let’s call this temperature T1.
“After that, it enters an adiabatic process. In the adiabatic state, although there is no heating, the piston continues to do work on the outside due to inertia, and the temperature inside the cylinder decreases.
“So the cylinder volume increases, and the temperature drops to T2.
“Then comes the isothermal heat release process. The piston descends in the reverse direction, the cylinder volume decreases, and it releases heat to the outside to maintain a constant temperature.
“Finally, an adiabatic process. The piston continues to descend due to inertia, the cylinder volume decreases, and the temperature rises to T1.
“If the heavy weight is replaced with another part of the cylinder, that is the working principle of the entire cylinder.”
Thomas looked at the cyclic cutaway image of the cylinder, clapped his hands, and said: “I understand. In this cycle of yours, the work done by the system on the outside is equal to the heat absorbed minus the heat released. This model can be called the Donna Heat Engine, and the cyclic process called the Donna Cycle. The working efficiency of the Donna Heat Engine is equal to one minus T1 divided by T2!”
Donna smiled and said: “Exactly. The best way for us to improve efficiency is to increase the temperature difference. As long as the temperature difference is large enough, the motive power will be extremely strong. Your thoughts on mana are also very interesting. I think we can integrate these two thoughts into two papers and publish them for discussion with other wizards.”
A week passed. The two papers were published one after another. The model hypothesized in Donna’s article On the Motive Power of Heat aroused widespread discussion among the Mechanical Faction. Many pragmatic applied wizards had already set out to improve the motive power of engines based on the theory.
Wizards had already passed the stage of steam kinetic energy. They discovered that various chemical energies could also be converted into mechanical energy, and the ideal model proposed by Donna held great practical significance.
Thomas’s hypothesis that the world is a steam engine, however, seemed to have too much fantasy, and discussions and criticisms were unceasing.
Ace, who had been paying attention to this matter all along, saw the two people’s papers, and His eyes lit up.
“Thomas’s thoughts are very interesting, and this hypothesis actually holds some possibility, but it’s still a bit lacking when it comes to thermodynamics specifics. You two still haven’t noticed another key point. It seems I can only take the field myself.”
Ace unrolled a magic parchment scroll and wrote a title on it: The Second Law of Thermodynamics—Thinking From the Donna Heat Engine.
Outside the window, the bright sun was shining high, everything was as usual. No one noticed that a world-shocking monster was about to be born.
The power of the Great Source was constantly churning, seemingly wanting to give Ace massive feedback, but was suppressed by Ace with a slap. The Great Source feedback of the Wizard World Cluster no longer had much practical significance for Ace; it was inferior to the energy brought by dimensional collapse that He obtained through the high-dimensional rifts. It was better left for others.
According to the current situation of the Wizard World Cluster, it could still support four or five more people to achieve Mythical rank. As for other wizards who had the potential to achieve Mythical rank but lacked resources, they could return to the Kaya World in the future; the resources there were much more vast.
One day later, a special issue of Magic was published again. Almost everyone saw the title The Second Law of Thermodynamics, First Author: Ace.
Betty was lying comfortably in her Wizard Tower, bathing in the sunlight. A Shadow Crow flew over and delivered the special issue into her hands. She glanced at the special issue casually, then sat up straight.
“The Second Law of Thermodynamics?”
She read slowly. The name Ace seemed to possess a miraculous effect. Although His Holiness Ace hadn’t published a theoretical monograph in a long time, as the mentor of wizards and the only Legendary Immortal, no one dared to underestimate His research.
The opening was praise for the Donna Heat Engine, which made Betty share in the glory. She prepared to properly praise Donna. Following that, Ace raised two questions.
“First, can the efficiency of the Donna Heat Engine equal one?
“In this situation, it must be guaranteed that T1 is infinite or T2 is zero. Infinite temperature is impossible, and a temperature of zero cannot be achieved either.
“The zero temperature here does not refer to the freezing point of water in the popular sense, because that is merely a conventional unit of measurement. We need to establish a new temperature scale: the absolute temperature scale.
“We know that at the same temperature, the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to its pressure.
“And through my measurements, for a given volume of any gas, when the temperature rises or falls by one traditional degree, the increase or decrease in its pressure is also constant, approximately equal to 1/273.
“Therefore, if we cool an ideal gas with a traditional temperature of zero down to minus 273 degrees, its air pressure will return to zero, and its volume will also return to zero.
“In other words, the temperature cannot drop any further; dropping further would make the volume negative, which is clearly impossible.
“Therefore, the traditional temperature of minus 273 degrees is Absolute Zero. Absolute Zero does not exist, so the efficiency of the Donna Heat Engine cannot reach 100%.”
Betty seemed to feel something, yet it seemed as if she hadn’t grasped anything. It was like having a very itchy sole but scratching it through a boot; no matter how you scratch, it doesn’t relieve the itch.
She continued looking at Ace’s second question: “What if the efficiency of the Donna Heat Engine equals zero?”
Betty said softly: “This is simple; just T1 = T2.”
“But what does the two being equal mean? It means the Donna Heat Engine idles and works in vain. In other words, under a single heat source, the Donna Heat Engine cannot work.
“Because we can determine that it is impossible to absorb heat from a single heat source and convert it completely into useful work without producing other effects. Simply put, useful work cannot be done under a single heat source system.”
Betty felt as if struck by lightning, murmuring: “Useful work cannot be done under a single heat source system… Does our world count as a single heat source system? Does the Astral Plane count?”
She looked down at Ace’s article: “It is just like separating hot water and cold water with a partition. When the partition is removed, the hot and cold will only mix evenly; the hot will not get hotter and the cold colder. There are two directions of change: one is the direction of natural evolution, and the other is the unnatural direction.
“The natural direction proceeds spontaneously and independently, while the unnatural direction must be influenced by the outside world to proceed.
“This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Heat cannot pass from a colder body to a hotter body without producing any other effect.”
A simple summary, yet it caused a massive tremor in Betty’s mind. Her Conservation Mechanical Sphere, that closed-loop system, even became somewhat unstable. She continued reading, but her vision blurred slightly.
“In such a purely isolated system, the internal heat will sooner or later become equal, equally desolate. If we view the entire Astral Plane as an isolated system, and the conversion of energy within the Astral Plane as a Donna Heat Engine continuously absorbing energy from high-temperature objects in the system and transferring it to low-temperature objects, there will come a day when the temperatures of the high-temperature objects and low-temperature objects are equal. In that case, the entire Astral Plane will be unable to operate.
“Therefore, I have created a concept: Entropy.
“The entropy of a system is equal to the heat absorbed (or dissipated) by the system in a certain process divided by its absolute temperature. This is the definition of entropy. Inside an isolated system, this is an irreversible process; that is, the flow of heat from a high-temperature object to a low-temperature object is irreversible.
“This is the inevitable, irreversible process from order to disorder in an isolated system. This process can be called Heat Death.”
Boom!
Betty seemed to see the disintegration of infinite worlds, the fall of upper worlds, the ultimate flattening of the Astral Plane, and the entire Astral Plane returning to desolation.
“Not necessarily, really not necessarily. First of all, our world is not an isolated system, but an open system. The world can exchange with the Astral Plane; energy, matter, and information can all be exchanged. Then regarding this Astral Plane, perhaps there exist unknown Astral Planes it can exchange with; it’s just that we cannot comprehend it.”
With her mind stabilized, Betty also saw Ace’s final paragraph: “An isolated system always tends towards entropy increase, ultimately reaching the state of maximum entropy, which is the system’s most chaotic and disordered state. However, for an open system, because it can transfer the entropy increase generated by internal energy exchange by releasing heat to the environment, it is possible for an open system to tend towards entropy decrease and reach an ordered state.”
This article by Ace caused a massive stir with a single stone. The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Theorem of Entropy Increase became almost the hottest topic of discussion. The sporadic headless corpses could not stop the wizards’ discussions and research. The Theorem of Entropy Increase was simply earth-shattering, deducing the true face of the entire world from a simple Donna Heat Engine.
Thomas immediately declared that mana was actually a certain kind of entropy increase. He strongly suspected that mana was the process of transferring energy from a certain higher dimension to this lower dimension of the Astral Plane, and this process perfectly matched entropy increase and Heat Death.
“The more disordered it is, the greater the entropy increase. We should promote order and achieve entropy decrease. Moreover, the ultimate Heat Death of the entire Astral Plane is far too distant, just as humans must eventually die. Although real, it is also distant, and we don’t need to worry about it.
“I believe what we wizards must do now is make our Wizard World Cluster decrease in entropy as much as possible. As an open system, we must continuously plunder resources from the outside, from other worlds.”
Bruce’s eyes were bright as he spoke eloquently at the Supreme Council meeting in the Central High Tower.
Thales also stood up and said loudly: “The Theorem of Entropy Increase further proves one thing: the Astral Plane is a dark forest. Every world civilization is attempting to plunder the other party’s resources to decrease the entropy of their own world, maximizing order, and causing the entropy of other worlds to increase, welcoming ultimate destruction.”
(Chapter finished)
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