The Second Law and I

Josh Ronsen

Copyright (c) 1991

I was there from the beginning. It was hard work back in those days. The universe was structured very differently than it is today. I mean, there was this stuff back then, matter, just as there is the same stuff, matter, today. But what matter did in those days (they seemed to last forever) was quite different from what it does today. Now, there is what is called entropy. Order will become chaos. Disorder and randomness will creep into structured systems. For example, if you place a drop of ink into a glass of water, soon the ink will become dispersed throughout the entire glass. The system has changed from order (all the ink concentrated into one spot) to chaos, (the ink spread out in the water). This is just what you would expect to happen nowadays, but back then it was different. Entropy worked backwards at one time. This might seem strange or even inconceivable to someone who has only witnessed the universe as it is today, but it is true. Trust me, I was there. Particles scattered throughout a box (of course, we had no boxes) would aggregate into a corner. Order and structure would creep into complete chaos. Molecules and crystalline shapes would appear out of nowhere where before there was only a kinetic blur of free particles. You might doubt that this was ever the case, but consider how things must have been in the beginning.*1* In the beginning there was no order. There was no such thing. Recognizable shapes? Ridiculous, we would have said (perhaps as even now you are uttering the same word). All we knew were the particles flying about with nothing else to do. Protons, electrons, mesons, Z bosons (all four kinds), the happy photons, and the mournful gluons. Not to mention the peons, the zions, the neutrinos, the supremos. We had more particles flying about than we knew what to do with. Order would have been a very strange concept if any of us had thought of it then.

There were seven of us back then: myself, Ouphe, Tholus, Pyxidis, Yerba, Nanos, and the strange one, Reis. At first there was not much to do. We somehow discovered the sublime joys of counting, for there was nothing else we could think of doing, and we counted ourselves. We were quite amused to find that this number did not change after repeated summations. Or I should say that the number calculated by each of the two respective fractions of counters did not vary. There were those of us, myself and my followers, Tholus and Pyxidis, who thought that the counter, that is, the one doing the counting, should be included in the summation, and the other group, Ouphe and his cohorts, Yerba and Nanos, who emphatically insisted that the counter should be left out. The number we counted was seven, and the number they counted was six. This problem occupied us for a while, as only one of the two answers could be correct. There were either six or seven of us. It could not be both; then there would be thirteen of us, and nobody had counted that yet, so we couldn't seriously consider it (although for a while it was a theory). This holds the honor of being the first intellectual argument, *3* although I can find no reference to it here on the the many shelves of Eckhart Library. Today we would have applied for government research grants to fund experiments and trips to key observational sites (Hawaii) and then written lengthy reports using such words as nystagimorphic integration, patronumismatical, and isoglophigraphicalism and sent them to prestigious academic journals. But as this was before the universe was ordered in any sense of the word, we could do none of these. Reis, who was different from the beginning, never got involved in these numerational disputes, and if he ever counted, he never revealed his answer to us. Hence, as we lacked a scientific quorum to decide the correct representation of reality, we remained disputatious and unpublished.

When counting ourselves lost most of its appeal, we began to count other things. Those with keener senses of vision could count the number of electrons that passed them. The rest of us had to make due with counting slow moving neutrons or the magnetic monopoles that floated about. Reis wasn't interested in this either, and seemed only to care about watching various particle collisions, or pushing particles into magnetic fields and watching them spiral about. Counting monopoles wasn't as much fun as counting ourselves had been. For one thing, we were all counting different monopoles and couldn't really argue with others about these summations. There were no conflicting ideologies involved, no heated debates and brawls, no passion involved in this counting. But we could think of nothing else to do. *2*

I was counting monopole 2,000,367 when it first happened. Next to my elbow a group of particles had suddenly collapsed into the shape of a large cube. Of course, we didn't call it a cube, as we had never seen one before. By large I mean about a couple of centimeters. This might not sound large to you, but up until that time we had only been dealing with subatomic particles, so small we could barely see them. The cube reflected photons in a strange way, producing shimmering, swirling patterns on its sides.

This event, the formation of the cube, took us all by surprise. Who could have expected it? It took us a while to figure out what had happened. We were sure that we hadn't been overlooking this object all this time. But that meant it was new. How did it form? What made it form here? As we were pondering these and other questions, another object, a tetraroid crystal, formed right before our eyes. Nanos, who had keen eyes, reported that he saw countless numbers of protons and electrons coming together to form this new shape.

To say the least, we were astounded by these developments. They were so different from what we had known before. We couldn't really ascertain the shapes of the particles around us, even to Nanos they looked just like points. And these new objects were so unlike our nebulous forms. They were so smooth, so perfect, so beautiful.

We didn't have to wait long before more forms appeared, mostly cubes, but also many other solids: hexaphonigons, fullerines, rhododendrigons. This became our primary source of entertainment, watching the objects form, or counting the different types of objects, or pushing like objects together into small spherical piles. This was more exciting and enjoyable than anything we had known before. The joy of seeing a new shape, one that had never been seen before, appear before one's eyes is a joy I cannot begin to describe. Although we were all greatly excited about the multitude of creation about us, it was Reis who was most fascinated by all of this. Never before had we seen him without an expression of bored indifference. Now, he was obsessed with observing all the newness around him.

We were all more than satisfied with our new surroundings. For once there was actually something to do. How could we have magined the danger that we were in? We didn't realize our predicament until it was almost too late for us to do anything. The shapes kept forming even when it was apparent that there were quite enough of them. By the time the shapes had blocked out about 75% of the outside universe from out view (not that there was anything to see, just a uniform glow of photons), things were getting very cramped where we were. It was still a small universe, about the size of Nebraska (but not as flat). It was clear that soon we would be crushed by all of the opalescent objects. When we first realized this, we thought that we could just push the objects away from us. But when we tried to do this, we found to our dismay that the shapes slowly drifted back towards us. All of the objects around us had created a rather sizeable gravitational field, and we were at it's center. We obviously did not have the strength to accelerate the objects to a sufficient escape velocity to rid ourselves of them, although we did try (to this day my arm is still sore). The gravitational field also prevented us from escaping to a volume where there were less crowded conditions.

You might wonder where our problem came from. There was plenty of room in the universe before the shapes began forming, why was there a problem now? We also wondered this for sometime. The shapes formed from subatomic particles, which were small, so if a million particles came together to form a rhumbahedron, it would be the size of a million particles, right? This is what we naively thought. After observing enough of these condensations, we were able to figure out exactly what happened. You would agree that a proton is very small, and an electron smaller still, just a speck! But when they come together to form an atom, the atom is much larger than either of the two constituent particles. Even though the volume inclosed by the atom is enough to contain about a million protons, it only contains one. This extra space is empty, as the electron is in an orbit far (by these standards) from the proton. Are you surprised that most of matter isn't? This was quite a strange discovery for us. The same thing happened with these crystalline shapes, except to a greater extent. So although there was basically the same amount of matter around us, it was now in a new form that occupied a much larger volume.

These new advances in our knowledge did little to comfort us in our present situation. We still had no way of dealing with our problem, which was now becoming desperate. We could see little of the outside universe, being incased in an ever growing shell of these objects. We had managed to push most of the crystals away from the seven of us, forming a small cavity for us to exist. Still more and more of the shapes formed around us. We were doomed.

It was in a fit of rage that I accidentally found the solution to our problems. We had had so little genuine intellectual exercise in our existence that those of you who have been paying attention probably thought of it long ago. I reached out and grabbed two cubes and smashed them together. They collided in a flash of photons and disassembled into their constituent protons and electrons, which were now free from their carngormatic prison.

If our problem was small particles coming together to form collections of particles that filled a larger volume than the sum of the original particles, surely the answer was to take apart the objects into their component forms.

I had only to wordlessly demonstrate this to the others for them to catch onto the idea. They all began to reach for the nearest objects. All except for Reis. He seemed to be horrified at the idea of destroying the crystalline shapes. We had to prod him to get him to join in our efforts. Finally, he gave in and began to smash the things apart, although without much enthusiasm.

After we all had begun breaking the solids, I felt sure that we were out of danger, but I had overlooked two facts. One; after we smashed a crystal, its component parts would fly off and condense into another shape. Two; there were so many of the shapes that we could barely keep up with destroying those newly formed, much less any of the multitude around us.

Existence became for us a miserable experience, each moment spent smashing everything within reach. Five of us would be awake at any one time, leaving two to restless sleep, which we had never needed before, never having had to physically exert ourselves. The routine was awful; grab the nearest two crystals and smash them. Then the next two. And then the next two.

I cannot tell you how long our misery went on (we had no clocks), but it seemed like an eternity. I can only tell you that we smashed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of these shapes. How wretched we all were. It seemed like we were doomed to carry out this Sisyphantic task forever. We were now completely cut off from the outside universe, the crystals forming a dense shell around us, like an egg. And we, the helpless chicks that we were, were without hope.

It was by chance that I looked up from the two tetrahedrons that I was smashing to Reis, and what I saw horrified me. Instead of breaking the crystals apart, he was serenely putting them together, oblivious to the doom around him. He had stacked two cubes on top of a agonadron and had smeared a handful of mesons around it for cohesion. He was reaching for a rhombic dodecahedron when I rushed over and smacked him across the face. What was he trying to do, I yelled, let us all be crushed? I reached to smash his design, but he, being the wily sort that he was, snatched it out of my grasp and without a word went to the far end of our remaining space, behind a large wall of crystals where we could not see him. I instinctively started to follow him, but then I thought better of it. Why waste time trying to get him to work. If he wants to get crushed, let him. To survive, I would have to work.

I woke up Yerba and Tholus and explained the situation to them as best as I could. There was not much that we could do. Tholus, being naturally violent, suggested that we get Reis and beat the crap out of him. It was the consensus of the others that this was a Good Thing To Do, but my cooler head prevailed and I convinced everyone to get back to work. We couldn't force Reis to survive, and already he was completely sealed off from us. We were sure that he was no longer alive, crushed by his own foolishness. Soon, I cautioned, a similar fate would befall us.

We were now in a panicked, feverish state. It seemed like there was no way for us to win. We were all exhausted, and there was even less space left for us to move around in. We knew the end was near when the seven of us, six of us, were forced back to back to back, each taking care of the shapes that coalesced right in front. We were sardines in a can. Modern Cosmologists will talk about The Big Crunch, but they have no idea how it feels to have the universe, the entire universe, to close in on them.

Just when we thought that there was no use in trying, when we had given up all hope, when we had no more strength left to fight, when the shapes were forming in our very ears, something unexpected happened. The shapes that composed the wall in front of me began to to quiver. Soon a number of the crystals burst from the wall, forming quite a large hole. From this hole emerged...a...it was...what was it? If I had thought that the first cube that I saw looked weird, it was nothing compared to this. There were two arrays of cubes parallel to each other, each about about twelve by twelve cubes by one thick. The arrays were separated by about ten cube lengths. On the side facing me, there was a row of tetrahedrons, like teeth, attached to each array so that they faced forwards. On the farther side was a mass of shapes and particles which produced magnetic fields. These fields pushed the two arrays together, smashing what ever was in between them. Then the fields switched polarity and separated the arrays. The machine turned to my left and began crunching all of the myriad objects that formed the wall closest to us. It could crush a hundred objects during the time it took us to reach for two. The others had by now seen this, and had stopped to stare dumbfounded at this thing, this smasher. How could objects and particles come together so perfectly to form such a thing, a thing that seemed to have the sole purpose of saving us?

The answer was standing majestically behind it: Reis. He stood there observing his creation, making sure that it was functioning correctly. He placed a few monopoles in to a pion funnel in back (his smasher ran on monopoles). Then he turned without giving us so much as a glance and started to tinker with some particles. We did not care; we were saved. Already the smasher had smashed many of the objects and things were much less crowded. Soon we were able to see the universe outside of our prison. The smasher not only broke the objects apart, but it also gathered together the constituent particles, ejecting them behind it at a great velocity, so there would not be a high concentration of particles floating about. This change in mass distribution had an almost immediate effect on us. Now that the matter around us was being dispersed by the smasher, we were no longer trapped in a gravitational well. We began to drift apart, each of us going in a different direction. Of course, we could have struggled to remain together, but we did not have the strength left after our ordeal to do so. I began to go to sleep, and I could see the others doing the same. We did not even have the strength to wave goodbye to each other as we drifted apart. The last thing I remember seeing is Reis, trying to get an electron to orbit a proton as the smasher continued to destroy the last of the dreaded objects. He's mad, I thought, he'll never get such a wily and tenacious particle like an electron to stay bound to a proton. Then I lost consciousness.

When I woke I was far from my companions; I could not even see them. How long had I been asleep? Quite a while, I guessed. The universe had greatly expanded in my slumber, and the uniform glow of photons was much dimmer than I had remembered it. There was really nothing around me. I was alone.

I have not seen any of the other six since that time. I wonder where they are. I wonder if they watched with awe as I did at the formation of stars, galaxies, life, the Federal Money Reserve. How much I would like to see my former companions in these stale times. I would especially like to see Ouphe, and finally, now that we both know so much more about the world, point out to him that he was wrong and I right; the counter is included in the summation. He would look at me, after inticipating and dreading this moment for years, and say something along the lines of "I always said that," or "Why are you telling me?" or even brazenly `Just like I told you when we were young." However, he would know that he was beaten, and that would be enough for me. With that matter settled, we would lean back in our armchairs, light up cigarettes, and wonder how much of the order that we see around us is due to Reis, the Creator.

Endnotes:

*1* I refer the Skeptical Reader to the article "Antichaos and Adaptation" by S. Kaufman (1991) for the basis of a theory which attempts to explain how complex nucleic acids formed on Earth by a process similar to what I am describing.

*2* The concept of Why had not yet been invented, and hence many important metaphysical and philosophical diatribes were unavailable to us.

*3* Although there exists evidence of great intellectual turmoil before the universe came into being. The strongest such evidence is the so called `fine structure constant', which plays an important role in atomic physics. It is roughly equal to 1/137. Such a bizarre number, I feel, could only have been arbitrated by a committee of the worst sort.

Josh Ronsen hails from the lonely moors of Austin, TX. There, he developed his writing style, which has been described as "a male Aldous Huxley, but with more hair." Upon arrival to the University of Chicago, he realized he had not even begun to approach the heights of underacheiving. He began writing short stories, because the strict limitations of the format demanded discipline and only a couple sheets of paper. He writes stories with multiple endings, "...to give the people a sense of controlling the environment that forms their dreams and way of thinking, and 'cuz I really liked those Choose-Your-Own-Way books." When not trying to get friends to write glowing assessments of his life, he keeps his electronic equipment in a state of constant repair, dreaming of having "...a truly cool jam session with Jeff Beck, the true talent to come out of the Yardbirds."

`The Second Law And I' is a tribute to the Italian writer Italo Calvino, who died in 1985 (a year after the death of Cortazar, and a year before the demise of Borges and Eliade). Calvino wrote more than a couple of stories which involved an unreliable narrator reflecting upon improbable or impossible events (such as being the last dinosaur, or playing marbles with newly formed Hydrogen atoms created by the expansion of the universe). "The Second Law And I" attemps to emulate Calvino's whimsical style and insight.

rons@midway.uchicago.edu