Entropy is generally considered to be an *emergent* property of matter - if you look closely enough at matter, it becomes impossible to see it (e.g. in single atom interactions). The source of the "entropy gradient" appears to be boundary conditions on the universe (e.g. the existence of the big bang + cosmic expansion). B ut is also as you say related to the existence of gravity, which is a major constructor of gradients from which energy can be derived -- in particular, stars. It's also related to nucleon binding energy following the curve it does, and the fact that the big bang created mainly the two lightest elements - thus allowing lots of scope for nuclear reactions to move the contents of the universe towards the stablest configurations. (This is all very fortuitous for us, or WAP related as the case may be.)
However, contrariwise, black hole physics implies that entropy is a *fundamental* property of space-time (Hawking's famous result, the Beckenstein bound, etc). I don't know if this apparent dichotomy has been resolved. You comment about a universal collapse reversing sign is interesting, I can see that that could work as described - although I have no idea how or why the sign reversal would occur. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
