Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Talk:Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T05:14:13Z

DonauKind: /* Discuss here before deleting information */

{{unprotected|19 March 2007|Tsumetai}}
== Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!==

I am getting a little tired of the (pardon the immoderate language) stupid edits in relation to the second law of thermodynamics. As has been stated by a number of people on the Talk:Theory of Evolution page, the second law of thermodynamics does not disprove the theory of evolution. You are just making this site look stupid by stating that it does. I see that the person who committed the muddleheaded reversion has now protected the page. Might I respectfully suggest that the protection be removed and some scholarship prevail. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 22:01, 3 March 2007 (EST)

== Protection and other issues ==

The trend towards protecting articles by users in edit conflicts is worrisome. Furthermore, the protected version is simply wrong. One of the Conservapedia Commandments is that everything should be sourced. I therefore would very much like to know if there is any source for the claim that "he Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of the universe tends towards a maximum" This statement is wrong at multiple levels- the 2nd Law is about closed systems (or can be stated about open systems with a some tweaking of the consequent), it says nothing about the universe. Furthermore, tending towards a maximum doesn't even mean that the entropy levels can't decrease. For example, the sequence, 1,3,2,5,4,7,6,9,8... tends towards infinity but is not an increasing sequence. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 04:05, 4 March 2007 (EST)

:Second law also says nothing about an upper bound to the entropy of a system; the entropy of the Universe could increase without limit, in principle, making the 'maximum' part wrong too.

:To be fair to Philip, the increase of the Universe's entropy ''is'' a tendency, not an absolute. The total entropy of an isolated system can decrease; it's just hugely improbable on the scales we're used to dealing with. Quantum effects can lead to a decrease in entropy; one has to deal with a very small system over short periods of time to actually notice this, however. Arbitrarily large decreases in entropy are also possible, given sufficient time. This is true whether one is discussing the fluctuation theorems of QM, or good old-fashioned classical systems.

:But these are not, strictly speaking, parts of the second law. Second law doesn't say anything about tendency. The rest of physics just says that second law is not absolute. So I don't think using the word 'tends' in the definition is very useful.

:The main problem with the article is, of course, the part about evolution, which as Horace says is just wrong, and painfully so. It's a seductive argument to the layman; after all, entropy is all about order and disorder, and evolution clearly requires the production of order. Right?

:Wrong, of course. The second law of '''thermo'''dynamics is a statement about '''thermodynamic''' quantities; 'order' is not one. One can choose to ''define'' the term 'order' in thermodynamic terms, in which case the statement that the Universe must become, on net, more disordered over time is true, for certain definitions. But the price for that is rejecting one's intuitive understanding of what constitutes 'order' and 'disorder,' and going with the maths. By a thermodynamic definition of order, my hot chocolate is self-organizing as we speak. Therein lies the danger of describing esoteric physics in terms which carry the baggage of their lay definition. Better to stick with entropy, and check one's prejudices at the door.

:Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate this is with a different statement of the second law; the Clausius statement, which reads:

::It is impossible to construct a heat engine which, operating in a cycle, produces no effect other than the transfer of a quantity of heat from a colder to a hotter body.

:Now, precisely which part of evolution violates ''that''? This version of the second law makes it abundantly clear that we're talking about a specific, mathematically rigorous statement about heat flow, not some general philosophical statement about order and chaos. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 07:51, 4 March 2007 (EST)

:Oh, yes, I forgot to weigh in on the page protection issue. Tonya Harding strategy, right?

:A while ago, I [http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly#Page_protection_policy suggested to ASchlafly] that a written policy on when page protection should be used, and for how long it should last would be helpful. Anyone else agree? [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 07:58, 4 March 2007 (EST)

== The following is incorrect ==

From the article:

"It is impossible for the total entropy of an isolated system to decrease, therefore the universe is becoming more and more disordered. In this way the Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves evolution."

The first sentence is true, but the second is false. Evolution does not cause the total entropy in the universe to decrease, only local variations. By analogy, a fridge does not cool the universe, only a small part of it at the expense of the rest. Please correct this clear error to avoid the increasing levels of criticisms being levelled at this wiki. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 07:45, 5 March 2007 (EST)

:To add my thoughts on this: there are two errors in this article. First, the second law ''only'' applies to ''isolated'' systems, not to systems that are merely closed, let alone open. Then it becomes clear that the "disproving" of evolution by referring to the second law is severely flawed. There is nothing against a local decrease in entropy, as long as it is balanced by at least as large an increase elsewhere. Moreover, the assumption that evolution is directly linked to a decrease in thermodynamic entropy is not immediately obvious. I agree with Nematocyte that in its present state, this article will just serve to invite more criticism. [[User:PaulB|PaulB]] 09:16, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::Strictly speaking, second law applies to all systems; for instance, consider the Clausius statement, which I posted up the page. No mention of an isolated system there. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 12:01, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:::That not what my stat.mech. text says ;-). Let's put it this way: the ''entropy'' formulation only applies to isolated systems. In fact, I think that the heat engine in the Clausius formulation should itself be taken as isolated. If we allow it to be (thermally or otherwise) coupled to anything else than a hot and a cold "temperature bath", I think we could make the heat flow up the temperature gradient, at the expense of course of something happening outside the engine. Of course, these thermal reservoirs are abstractions, etc. etc. Anyway, here as well, either we should take the system (engine) as isolated, or we should take it as the entire universe. Both cases are not going to help disprove evolution at any rate. [[User:PaulB|PaulB]] 12:24, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::::I think even the entropy formulation will work with open systems, so long as one takes care to quantify the entropy flow through the boundary. The requirement then becomes that entropy decrease within the boundary is no greater than the net entropy flow out of the system through the boundary. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 12:37, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:::::I think it's effectively the same as looking at an isolated system made out of two parts, inside and outside, and applying the second law to the total system. But what you propose should indeed work. I hadn't thought of doing it that way. [[User:PaulB|PaulB]] 13:04, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::::::Absolutely; you can always expand the boundary of an open system to obtain an isolated one, in principle. But it's very useful to be able to work with open systems, if the boundary terms can be computed, since it allows one to ignore entropy generation in the environment. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 13:08, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

== Time to unprotect ==

OK, it's been over a week now, and no one has attempted to defend the inclusion of such rubbish. Might we have the article unprotected so that those of us who actually understand elementary thermodynamics can fix it? [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 07:50, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
:Nothing doing sir, the numbskulls are the experts. Who said Sri Lanka became independent in the 1970s, none other than the owner of this site! [[User:Zaheerabbas|Zaheerabbas]] 02:12, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

== Ressurection a violation? ==

I think we should add a section about the resurrection of Jesus and that it "technically" violates the second law of thermodynamics, but that since it was a miracle, it does not need to adhere to the second law. Thoughts?
:...*blinks* Are there sources that are actually saying that? *honestly curious* --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]]

:I think the latter part is pretty obvious, and negates the need for the former. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 11:58, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:: Gonna back Tsumetai up on this one. Also, it's shocking and appalling that this article is protected while containing such tripe in the content of it.--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 12:00, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Not to mention the fact that in the ten days since criticisms were first raised, no one who supports the article in its current state has bothered to defend it.[[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 12:03, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::::Agreed. I'll leave a message on the protecting admin's Talk page, maybe it'll help. Talking on here doesn't seem to have any impact. =/ --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 12:05, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Oh, of course. Many intellectuals here! Long live the stone age numbskull army!!! [[User:Zaheerabbas|Zaheerabbas]] 02:11, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==This law and evolution==

Timothy Wallace wrote:

*Evolutionist theory faces a problem in the second law, since the law is plainly understood to indicate (as does empirical observation) that things tend towards disorder, simplicity, randomness, and disorganization, while the theory insists that precisely the opposite has been taking place since the universe began (assuming it had a beginning).

*Beginning with the “Big Bang” and the self-formation and expansion of space and matter, the evolutionist scenario declares that every structure, system, and relationship—down to every atom, molecule, and beyond—is the result of a loosely-defined, spontaneous self-assembly process of increasing organization and complexity, and a direct contradiction (i.e., theorized violation) of the second law. [http://www.trueorigin.org/steiger.asp]

Comments? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 16:24, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

:Its a considerable misunderstanding. Points:
::*The second law refers to the flow of heat, it is unclear how exactly that translates into "disorder" and "order" when applied to something like life.
::*The second law refers to closed systems, open systems are a much more complex processes and the "law" does not apply cleanly here. Life and Earth are open systems.
::*Evolution is essentially a favored random walk, these systems are able to produce violations of "disorder" all the time. For example any [[Monte Carlo method]] algorithm demonstrates this beautifully, you can reach local "maximum" and avoid "minimums" by using evolutionary algorithms and many other variations on the theme.
::*Complexity theory and Self-organizing systems also routinely violate the maxim that order can not be created from disorder. The sorts of things needed to produce an SOS or complex system are just the kinds of things we find in life.

:Life is not a good place to be trying to appeal a mathematical description of heat. [[User:Etaroced|Etaroced]] 16:31, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Also, applying the second law to evolution reflects a plain misunderstanding. Beings today are not "more perfect" than those that came before. Greater "perfection" may be a violation of the idea of entropy. However, evolved organisms are not more "perfect" than earlier organisms, since Darwin's point is that there is no biological level of "perfection." Evolved organisms don't violate entropy anymore than ''older'' organisms (a 20 year old relative to a 10 year old) do!-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 17:02, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

:Ames, you're disagreeing with one of the best Renaissance minds, [[William Shakespeare]]:
:*"What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! ". - ([[Hamlet]], Act II, Scene II).

:Now, how does Evolution explain man evolving through an unguided process from one-celled organisms? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 17:56, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Shakespeare is not a scientist. Science and art are different. I realize they may not be for creationists, which is shocking and kind of funny. But they are different in the real world.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 18:15, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

== Discuss here before deleting information ==

OK. I deleted the "three types of systems the Second Law can apply to," because it only applies to closed systems. I also deleted the claim that it disproves evolution and relativity, because it doesn't. Evolution is nonsense, but isn't disproved by the Second Law because EARTH IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM. As for relativity, the Second Law has no connection to it at all. This article is about one of the key laws of science, and if it's blatant nonsense the credibility of the whole site suffers. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 23:47, 16 February 2012 (EST)

:There is no such thing as a perfectly closed system, so your attempt to limit the important Second Law to closed systems is misplaced. The Second Law is far more meaningful than that.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:49, 16 February 2012 (EST)
::Irrelevant. The Second Law only applies to closed systems. If a system isn't closed then energy can be added, thus reducing entropy. That is the MEANING of the Second Law. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 23:52, 16 February 2012 (EST)
:::OK, give me a statement of the Second Law that works in an open system. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 23:53, 16 February 2012 (EST)

::::Your approach would appear to limit the Second Law to something that doesn't exist. It's more meaningful than that. Its entry here explains its insight.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:58, 16 February 2012 (EST)
:::::No ''ideal gas'' exists either, yet the Ideal Gas Law only applies to this non-existent hypothetical gas. --[[User:JoshuaB|JoshuaB]] 00:00, 17 February 2012 (EST)
::::::The Second Law isn't an ''insight''. It's a description of energy available for work in a closed system. It doesn't have some deep ''meaning'' that can be applied to whatever you like. The Second Law is an accurate description of entropy (note: ''entropy'', not ''disorder'') in a closed system, and if ever a closed system is found then rest assured that overall entropy will not decrease inside it. But to say it disproves evolution is nonsense, especially when you yourself admit that Earth is NOT a closed system! --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 00:05, 17 February 2012 (EST)
:::::::And your point is ....? Attempts to limit the Ideal Gas Law to perfectly ideal gases would be misguided also.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:02, 17 February 2012 (EST)
::::::::Uh what? How can the Ideal Gas law be applied to something that isn't an ideal gas? --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 00:06, 17 February 2012 (EST)

:::::::::The Ideal Gas Law has insights that extend beyond ideal gases. Ditto for the Second Law with respect to closed systems.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:10, 17 February 2012 (EST)
::::::::::OK then, tell me an "insight" that the Second Law can bring to a system that is ''not'' closed. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 00:14, 17 February 2012 (EST)

Talk:Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T05:06:31Z

DonauKind: /* Discuss here before deleting information */

Talk:Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T05:05:20Z

DonauKind: /* Discuss here before deleting information */

{{unprotected|19 March 2007|Tsumetai}}
== Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!==

I am getting a little tired of the (pardon the immoderate language) stupid edits in relation to the second law of thermodynamics. As has been stated by a number of people on the Talk:Theory of Evolution page, the second law of thermodynamics does not disprove the theory of evolution. You are just making this site look stupid by stating that it does. I see that the person who committed the muddleheaded reversion has now protected the page. Might I respectfully suggest that the protection be removed and some scholarship prevail. --[[User:Horace|Horace]] 22:01, 3 March 2007 (EST)

== Protection and other issues ==

The trend towards protecting articles by users in edit conflicts is worrisome. Furthermore, the protected version is simply wrong. One of the Conservapedia Commandments is that everything should be sourced. I therefore would very much like to know if there is any source for the claim that "he Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of the universe tends towards a maximum" This statement is wrong at multiple levels- the 2nd Law is about closed systems (or can be stated about open systems with a some tweaking of the consequent), it says nothing about the universe. Furthermore, tending towards a maximum doesn't even mean that the entropy levels can't decrease. For example, the sequence, 1,3,2,5,4,7,6,9,8... tends towards infinity but is not an increasing sequence. [[User:JoshuaZ|JoshuaZ]] 04:05, 4 March 2007 (EST)

:Second law also says nothing about an upper bound to the entropy of a system; the entropy of the Universe could increase without limit, in principle, making the 'maximum' part wrong too.

:To be fair to Philip, the increase of the Universe's entropy ''is'' a tendency, not an absolute. The total entropy of an isolated system can decrease; it's just hugely improbable on the scales we're used to dealing with. Quantum effects can lead to a decrease in entropy; one has to deal with a very small system over short periods of time to actually notice this, however. Arbitrarily large decreases in entropy are also possible, given sufficient time. This is true whether one is discussing the fluctuation theorems of QM, or good old-fashioned classical systems.

:But these are not, strictly speaking, parts of the second law. Second law doesn't say anything about tendency. The rest of physics just says that second law is not absolute. So I don't think using the word 'tends' in the definition is very useful.

:The main problem with the article is, of course, the part about evolution, which as Horace says is just wrong, and painfully so. It's a seductive argument to the layman; after all, entropy is all about order and disorder, and evolution clearly requires the production of order. Right?

:Wrong, of course. The second law of '''thermo'''dynamics is a statement about '''thermodynamic''' quantities; 'order' is not one. One can choose to ''define'' the term 'order' in thermodynamic terms, in which case the statement that the Universe must become, on net, more disordered over time is true, for certain definitions. But the price for that is rejecting one's intuitive understanding of what constitutes 'order' and 'disorder,' and going with the maths. By a thermodynamic definition of order, my hot chocolate is self-organizing as we speak. Therein lies the danger of describing esoteric physics in terms which carry the baggage of their lay definition. Better to stick with entropy, and check one's prejudices at the door.

:Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate this is with a different statement of the second law; the Clausius statement, which reads:

::It is impossible to construct a heat engine which, operating in a cycle, produces no effect other than the transfer of a quantity of heat from a colder to a hotter body.

:Now, precisely which part of evolution violates ''that''? This version of the second law makes it abundantly clear that we're talking about a specific, mathematically rigorous statement about heat flow, not some general philosophical statement about order and chaos. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 07:51, 4 March 2007 (EST)

:Oh, yes, I forgot to weigh in on the page protection issue. Tonya Harding strategy, right?

:A while ago, I [http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly#Page_protection_policy suggested to ASchlafly] that a written policy on when page protection should be used, and for how long it should last would be helpful. Anyone else agree? [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 07:58, 4 March 2007 (EST)

== The following is incorrect ==

From the article:

"It is impossible for the total entropy of an isolated system to decrease, therefore the universe is becoming more and more disordered. In this way the Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves evolution."

The first sentence is true, but the second is false. Evolution does not cause the total entropy in the universe to decrease, only local variations. By analogy, a fridge does not cool the universe, only a small part of it at the expense of the rest. Please correct this clear error to avoid the increasing levels of criticisms being levelled at this wiki. [[User:Nematocyte|Nematocyte]] 07:45, 5 March 2007 (EST)

:To add my thoughts on this: there are two errors in this article. First, the second law ''only'' applies to ''isolated'' systems, not to systems that are merely closed, let alone open. Then it becomes clear that the "disproving" of evolution by referring to the second law is severely flawed. There is nothing against a local decrease in entropy, as long as it is balanced by at least as large an increase elsewhere. Moreover, the assumption that evolution is directly linked to a decrease in thermodynamic entropy is not immediately obvious. I agree with Nematocyte that in its present state, this article will just serve to invite more criticism. [[User:PaulB|PaulB]] 09:16, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::Strictly speaking, second law applies to all systems; for instance, consider the Clausius statement, which I posted up the page. No mention of an isolated system there. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 12:01, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:::That not what my stat.mech. text says ;-). Let's put it this way: the ''entropy'' formulation only applies to isolated systems. In fact, I think that the heat engine in the Clausius formulation should itself be taken as isolated. If we allow it to be (thermally or otherwise) coupled to anything else than a hot and a cold "temperature bath", I think we could make the heat flow up the temperature gradient, at the expense of course of something happening outside the engine. Of course, these thermal reservoirs are abstractions, etc. etc. Anyway, here as well, either we should take the system (engine) as isolated, or we should take it as the entire universe. Both cases are not going to help disprove evolution at any rate. [[User:PaulB|PaulB]] 12:24, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::::I think even the entropy formulation will work with open systems, so long as one takes care to quantify the entropy flow through the boundary. The requirement then becomes that entropy decrease within the boundary is no greater than the net entropy flow out of the system through the boundary. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 12:37, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:::::I think it's effectively the same as looking at an isolated system made out of two parts, inside and outside, and applying the second law to the total system. But what you propose should indeed work. I hadn't thought of doing it that way. [[User:PaulB|PaulB]] 13:04, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::::::Absolutely; you can always expand the boundary of an open system to obtain an isolated one, in principle. But it's very useful to be able to work with open systems, if the boundary terms can be computed, since it allows one to ignore entropy generation in the environment. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 13:08, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

== Time to unprotect ==

OK, it's been over a week now, and no one has attempted to defend the inclusion of such rubbish. Might we have the article unprotected so that those of us who actually understand elementary thermodynamics can fix it? [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 07:50, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
:Nothing doing sir, the numbskulls are the experts. Who said Sri Lanka became independent in the 1970s, none other than the owner of this site! [[User:Zaheerabbas|Zaheerabbas]] 02:12, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

== Ressurection a violation? ==

I think we should add a section about the resurrection of Jesus and that it "technically" violates the second law of thermodynamics, but that since it was a miracle, it does not need to adhere to the second law. Thoughts?
:...*blinks* Are there sources that are actually saying that? *honestly curious* --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]]

:I think the latter part is pretty obvious, and negates the need for the former. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 11:58, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:: Gonna back Tsumetai up on this one. Also, it's shocking and appalling that this article is protected while containing such tripe in the content of it.--[[User:AmesG|AmesG]] 12:00, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

:::Not to mention the fact that in the ten days since criticisms were first raised, no one who supports the article in its current state has bothered to defend it.[[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 12:03, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

::::Agreed. I'll leave a message on the protecting admin's Talk page, maybe it'll help. Talking on here doesn't seem to have any impact. =/ --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] 12:05, 13 March 2007 (EDT)

Oh, of course. Many intellectuals here! Long live the stone age numbskull army!!! [[User:Zaheerabbas|Zaheerabbas]] 02:11, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

==This law and evolution==

Timothy Wallace wrote:

*Evolutionist theory faces a problem in the second law, since the law is plainly understood to indicate (as does empirical observation) that things tend towards disorder, simplicity, randomness, and disorganization, while the theory insists that precisely the opposite has been taking place since the universe began (assuming it had a beginning).

*Beginning with the “Big Bang” and the self-formation and expansion of space and matter, the evolutionist scenario declares that every structure, system, and relationship—down to every atom, molecule, and beyond—is the result of a loosely-defined, spontaneous self-assembly process of increasing organization and complexity, and a direct contradiction (i.e., theorized violation) of the second law. [http://www.trueorigin.org/steiger.asp]

Comments? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 16:24, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

:Its a considerable misunderstanding. Points:
::*The second law refers to the flow of heat, it is unclear how exactly that translates into "disorder" and "order" when applied to something like life.
::*The second law refers to closed systems, open systems are a much more complex processes and the "law" does not apply cleanly here. Life and Earth are open systems.
::*Evolution is essentially a favored random walk, these systems are able to produce violations of "disorder" all the time. For example any [[Monte Carlo method]] algorithm demonstrates this beautifully, you can reach local "maximum" and avoid "minimums" by using evolutionary algorithms and many other variations on the theme.
::*Complexity theory and Self-organizing systems also routinely violate the maxim that order can not be created from disorder. The sorts of things needed to produce an SOS or complex system are just the kinds of things we find in life.

:Life is not a good place to be trying to appeal a mathematical description of heat. [[User:Etaroced|Etaroced]] 16:31, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Also, applying the second law to evolution reflects a plain misunderstanding. Beings today are not "more perfect" than those that came before. Greater "perfection" may be a violation of the idea of entropy. However, evolved organisms are not more "perfect" than earlier organisms, since Darwin's point is that there is no biological level of "perfection." Evolved organisms don't violate entropy anymore than ''older'' organisms (a 20 year old relative to a 10 year old) do!-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 17:02, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

:Ames, you're disagreeing with one of the best Renaissance minds, [[William Shakespeare]]:
:*"What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! ". - ([[Hamlet]], Act II, Scene II).

:Now, how does Evolution explain man evolving through an unguided process from one-celled organisms? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 17:56, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Shakespeare is not a scientist. Science and art are different. I realize they may not be for creationists, which is shocking and kind of funny. But they are different in the real world.-'''AmesG'''[http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:AmesG yo!] 18:15, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

== Discuss here before deleting information ==

OK. I deleted the "three types of systems the Second Law can apply to," because it only applies to closed systems. I also deleted the claim that it disproves evolution and relativity, because it doesn't. Evolution is nonsense, but isn't disproved by the Second Law because EARTH IS NOT A CLOSED SYSTEM. As for relativity, the Second Law has no connection to it at all. This article is about one of the key laws of science, and if it's blatant nonsense the credibility of the whole site suffers. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 23:47, 16 February 2012 (EST)

:There is no such thing as a perfectly closed system, so your attempt to limit the important Second Law to closed systems is misplaced. The Second Law is far more meaningful than that.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:49, 16 February 2012 (EST)
::Irrelevant. The Second Law only applies to closed systems. If a system isn't closed then energy can be added, thus reducing entropy. That is the MEANING of the Second Law. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 23:52, 16 February 2012 (EST)
:::OK, give me a statement of the Second Law that works in an open system. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 23:53, 16 February 2012 (EST)

::::Your approach would appear to limit the Second Law to something that doesn't exist. It's more meaningful than that. Its entry here explains its insight.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:58, 16 February 2012 (EST)
:::::No ''ideal gas'' exists either, yet the Ideal Gas Law only applies to this non-existent hypothetical gas. --[[User:JoshuaB|JoshuaB]] 00:00, 17 February 2012 (EST)
::::::The Second Law isn't an ''insight''. It's a description of energy available for work in a closed system. It doesn't have some deep ''meaning'' that can be applied to whatever you like. The Second Law is an accurate description of entropy (note: ''entropy'', not ''disorder'') in a closed system, and if ever a closed system is found then rest assured that overall entropy will not decrease inside it. But to say it disproves evolution is nonsense, especially when you yourself admit that Earth is NOT a closed system! --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 00:05, 17 February 2012 (EST)
::::::And your point is ....? Attempts to limit the Ideal Gas Law to perfectly ideal gases would be misguided also.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:02, 17 February 2012 (EST)

Talk:Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:53:11Z

DonauKind: /* Discuss here before deleting information */

Talk:Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:52:26Z

DonauKind: /* Discuss here before deleting information */

Talk:Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:47:06Z

DonauKind: /* Discuss here before deleting information */

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:43:30Z

DonauKind: Undo revision 962287 by Aschlafly (talk)Your edits are wrong. Let's discuss this on the talk page, so I can explain WHY they're wrong.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never spontaneously flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Francisco d'Anconia

2012-02-17T04:41:36Z

DonauKind: Birth date is not from the novel.

'''Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia''', a major character in [[Ayn Rand]]'s novel ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was the last CEO of a [[copper]] [[mining]] company that had been in his family since the days of the [[Spanish Empire]]. He presented the public face of a [[playboy]], interested primarily in meaningless romances while his company descended into rack and ruin. In fact he was deliberately destroying it, on the orders, as he interpreted them, of [[John Galt]].

{{spoiler}}
== Back story ==
In or about 1600, in the days of the Spanish Empire, Sebastián d'Anconia insulted the Lord of the [[Spanish Inquisition]] at a court dinner and fled to the [[Viceroy|Viceroyalty]] of [[Peru]]. He came to the [[Andes Mountains]] in [[South America]] and explored them for mineral wealth. He found a rich [[lode]] of [[copper]], and on this lode he built a fortune that would sustain his family for many generations to come. Fifteen years later, he sent for the woman he had left behind in [[Spain]].

Sebastián d'Anconia's successors were not the sort of "trust fund kids" that one finds today. They prided themselves on following his examples of self-reliance, self-discipline, and above all, autonomy. As Francisco would later explain, before any man took the reins of what became D'Anconia Copper SA, he must prove himself worthy of the family name.

== Youth ==
Young Francisco d'Anconia spent many of his childhood and [[adolescent]] summers at the family compound of the Taggarts, the family that controlled the great [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]. His father encouraged this, so that he would consider himself a man of the world, not merely a man of his native [[Argentina]].

His playmates there included [[James Taggart]], his sister [[Dagny Taggart|Dagny]], and [[Eddie Willers]], last in a long line of men who had served the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]] in various subordinate executive positions. James Taggart never impressed Francisco very much. He could tolerate Eddie Willers, because Eddie followed his lead and did not spend half his time complaining, as James was wont to do. But by far the playmate who made the greatest impression on him was Dagny.

At the age of 11, Francisco spent the winter in the home of the Duke of Alba, in [[Madrid]]. A year later, he stowed away on one of his father's cargo ships and worked his passage. When the ship put in to port, the elder d'Anconia wanted only one answer from his son: whether he had been good at whatever job the captain of the ship set him to. Francisco cheerfully assured his father that the answer was yes.

In the summer of 1992, Francisco managed to get a job as a night dispatcher on the TTRR, in violation of several child-labor laws and other regulations. He lost that job strictly on account of those regulations. Everyone in the yard liked him and liked the job he did. He did it for one reason only: to be able to boast that he had had a job on the TTRR before Dagny had. (Dagny had long since told him that someday she would run the TTRR.)

About two years later, Francisco observed to Dagny that the industrial trademarks he saw as the two would hop freight trains for fun were the closest things to coats-of-arms that modern society offered.

== College ==
When he was sixteen years old, Francisco went to the [[Patrick Henry]] University of [[Cleveland]], [[Ohio]] (not to be confused with the real-life [[Patrick Henry College]]). He decided to pursue an interesting and demanding double major: [[physics]] and [[philosophy]]. Though he had a generous allowance, Francisco worked nights as a furnace boy in a copper foundry in Cleveland.

To his pleasant surprise, he met two other young men who had the same plans: [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]], who descended from a long line of [[Viking]] aristocrats, and [[John Galt]], who came to the school virtually penniless and literally worked his way through college. Despite the vast differences in their backgrounds, the three became very fast friends, though perhaps none of the three would know ''how'' fast their friendship would prove to be in the years ahead.

In the summer before his senior year, Francisco returned to New York at the time that Dagny Taggart "came out" as a debutante. Dagny told Francisco that she found the party a bore, because she alone, of all those present, even managed to enjoy herself. That night, the two began an affair that would last for eight years.

Francisco returned to PHU and completed his undergraduate degree. He then bought the copper foundry where he had worked, shocking the employees of D'Anconia Copper and even giving pause to his father. But in the fall of 2000, Francisco went to Montana as assistant superintendent of the D'Anconia Copper properties in that State. In the spring of the next year, he came to New York and took charge of the D'Anconia Copper branch headquarters there. Slightly more than two years later, his father was dead, and Francisco then took command of D'Anconia Copper SA and all its worldwide interests.

== The strike call ==
On March 7, 2007, Francisco received what he could only describe as a summons from [[John Galt]] to meet him at an address that he least expected John Galt to have: a garret apartment in a run-down brownstone in [[New York City]]. He answered the summons. He was shocked to see John Galt living in a place like this, and that [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]], whom he had last seen pursuing his PhD in Philosophy at PHU, joined them.

John Galt was not interested in something as mundane as a "college reunion." He told them a very disheartening and bracing story of his experiences at the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]] in [[Wisconsin]], where he had gone to work as an engineer three years before. His story was this: after he completed the prototype of a motor that could run on static electricity from the atmosphere, the owner of the factory, Gerald "Jed" Starnes, died. Gerald Starnes' heirs then proposed a plan that Galt knew he could never accept. Under that plan, all the workers would work according to their abilities, and be paid according to their needs. John Galt immediately announced his refusal to work under such a plan and his intention, as he put it, to "stop the motor of the world."

He then shared with them his proposal: to call a [[strike]] of the men of the mind, and note how quickly human society would collapse without their contributions. He then asked Francisco and Ragnar to join him in this strike. During his talk, he gestured out the window. "When you see these lights go out," he said, "then you will know that our job is done."

Francisco knew that merely quitting and joining the strike would not be enough for him. "To whom much is given, much is expected," and as Francisco saw it, John Galt would expect nothing less of him than that he not only ''quit'' the D'Anconia Copper Company, but also to ''destroy'' it so that no one would have the benefit of the talents of his predecessors. As he would later explain it to Dagny,{{cquote|I am not merely leaving it as I found it; I am leaving it as Sebastiän d'Anconia found it, and then let the world get along without him or me!}}

== Dagny Taggart ==
The first person whom Francisco went to see was Dagny. He could not tell her the full particulars, because that was a secret that belonged to someone else. But he begged her to give him some reason to reject John Galt's message, though again he did not specifically identify John Galt ''or'' the message. Perhaps he should never have expected Dagny to argue effectively with him under such a handicap. But he did not merely see Dagny as a love interest; he saw that she, too, was as much a victim of what John Galt called the "looter system" as John Galt might have been, and that what she ''should'' do was to go on strike with him. He also saw that she could never bring herself to do such a thing, and he dared not share that secret with her until she was ready to hear it.

And so, with much sorrow, he bade her farewell. But he set for himself the personal goal to recruit her into the strike, no matter how long it took. The only other prospect in whom Francisco would take such a personal interest was [[Henry Rearden]], many years later.

== The playboy ==
Francisco needed a cover for his activities, and he found one. He became the stereotypical, if not quintessential, "Latin lover." He would throw wild parties in which he encouraged his guests to cast aside the usual notions of modesty and decorum. He would even give the appearance of having one "one-night stand" after another. Yet in fact he never once was intimate with any of the women whom he allowed to become linked with him in international gossip. As he would later explain:{{cquote|Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will show you his opinion of himself.}}

So he never was intimate with any of these women, because he could not bring himself to stoop that low.

== The mole ==
Besides which, all of his playboy activities were an elaborate sham. As he continued to invite gossip, he was preparing to make some business decisions that would be thoroughly bad in any context except that of a deliberate attempt to destroy his family business.

=== The San Sebastián Mines ===
In or about September of 2011, Francisco opened the San Sebastián Mines in the [[Sierra Madre]] mountains of [[Mexico]]. James Taggart became President of the TTRR in that year. He rather excitedly proposed a special railway line, the San Sebastián Line, to serve those mines and the workers' community that served them. Dagny Taggart became Vice-President of Operations three years later and, within a year, completed the line. Francisco presided over its opening, on New Year's Day of 2016, but noted with satisfaction that Dagny did not attend. She knew, just as Francisco did, that Mexico was now the People's State of Mexico and was likely to [[nationalization|nationalize]] the mines and the railway line at the next meeting of the Mexican Congress. So beginning on September 2, 2016, Francisco saw the service on the San Sebastián Line cut to one passenger train a day (pulled by a [[wood]]-burning [[steam]] [[locomotive]]) and one freight train every other day. Francisco accepted these service cuts without complaint.

Then, inevitably, the People's State of Mexico nationalized the mines and the railway line. But then the Mexican government discovered the truth: Francisco had opened mines where there was neither copper nor any other mineral to be found. When the story broke, Francisco was in [[New York City]], staying at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel (probably the [[Waldorf-Astoria Hotel]] under a fictitious name). Dagny Taggart came to see him, and Francisco simply feigned innocence and asked her to try to reason out for himself why he would drive mines into mountains that could yield no minerals, for no better reason than to play an elaborate scam against a [[Communist]] government. Francisco left her with only this clue:{{cquote|Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you find yourself facing an apparent contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.}}

=== Stock manipulation ===
In another dubious decision, Francisco actually manipulated the common stock of his company to make it look attractive to James Taggart, Orren Boyle, and their politically connected friends. Then, on the occasion of James Taggart's wedding to a young woman named Cherryl Brooks (September 2, 2018), he made a great show of protesting that his company was out of cash and could not keep going without a major loan. The stock promptly crashed, and the connected politicos lost heavily.

=== Lost cargoes ===
The third manner in which Francisco systematically depleted the assets of his company involved his old friend [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]]. Ragnar had long since became a [[privateer]], and was seizing government "humanitarian" cargoes and generally becoming the scourge of the [[Atlantic Ocean]]. Francisco would occasionally send messages to Ragnar whenever one of his copper-laden freighters was setting sail, in the expectation that Ragnar would attack the ship, cast the crew adrift in lifeboats, and then sink the ship with its load. One such "loss" would place a great strain on Francisco's campaign to recruit Henry Rearden into the strike: Rearden had contracted with D'Anconia Copper to ship a load of copper for the pouring of another heat or two of Rearden Metal (see below), but that copper would never reach its intended port.

== D'Anconia Copper Number One ==
In the springtime of the same year (2011) in which Francisco first drove the San Sebastiän Mines into the Sierra Madre Mountains, John Galt recruited [[Midas Mulligan]], the famous banker of [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]]. Mulligan had long since bought out the old mining "ghost town" of Ouray, [[Colorado]], after the very slow economy had long since killed its tourist trade. (In real life, Ouray, CO is accessible by one paved road, the southern part of which is a switchback pass without guardrails.) Mulligan in fact owned the entire land area of the former town of Ouray, together with several miles of the Uncompahgre River valley to either side. Now Mulligan built a single house up-slope from the valley floor, cut off all access except for the old Million Dollar Highway (which he now camouflaged), and stocked the valley with supplies to last a man a lifetime.

But Mulligan did not stay secluded. He hired John Galt to build at least two vital projects: a refractor-ray system to project a false image of the valley for any curious pilots (satellites had long since fallen silent), and a powerhouse to provide energy for the ray screen, for Midas Mulligan's house, and for any other house that a man might build. And so, in June of that year, Francisco (and his friend Ragnar Danneskjöld) came to this valley, not to the former meeting place of the strikers (wherever that had been, which the novel never names). Each of the three built a house in the valley, to use for one month out of the twelve. John and Francisco likely worked together to extend electrical service from the powerhouse to each of the four houses in the valley.

Francisco needed only one look at the surrounding mountains to see the possibilities. He prospected through those mountains, and struck a lode of [[copper]]. Now he knew that he could still build a productive career, ''and'' provide a product for what might one day become a thriving community. For Francisco knew that as the strike gathered momentum, it would create a community of like-minded men. That community would need copper and other raw materials. And so he quietly recruited some of his people at D'Anconia Copper, hired some of his fellow strikers, and worked the lode. D'Anconia Copper Number One became the first mining operation in the place that he now called [[Galt's Gulch]].

Labor was chronically short, so Francisco designed new mining machines to enable one miner to do the work of ten or more. Transportation remained a problem; only [[mule]]s could negotiate the trail he blazed to the mine. (Eventually, [[Henry Rearden]] would help him build a truck road, and after that, [[Dagny Taggart]] would build a railroad from the mine to the valley. But that would come near the end of the strike.)

[[Judge Narragansett]] and [[Richard Halley]] asked for and got leaseholds in Galt's Gulch (or Mulligan's Valley, as John insisted on calling it) in the fall of that year. They were the first two permanent residents besides Mulligan.

== Looking for conquests ==
At about the same time as the San Sebastián debacle, Francisco noticed that Rearden Steel was in the news. [[Henry Rearden]] had invented a new kind of [[alloy]], the principal constituents of which were [[iron]] and [[copper]]. With this metal, called "Rearden Metal," Henry Rearden proposed to pour rail and even make an entire bridge to renovate Taggart Transcontinental's ailing Rio Norte Line in [[Colorado]]. While he was making his plans in detail, his wife Lillian gave a grand dinner party to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary (December 10, 2016). Lillian invited Francisco d'Anconia; apparently the rules of the social set to which Lillian Rearden belonged demanded that she not ignore him entirely.

Francisco attended, and introduced himself to Rearden. Rearden did not really want to talk to him, but Francisco could tell, even then, that Rearden would be ripe for the taking within a few years. All that Francisco need do was to encourage Rearden to think about himself and his situation, along a certain line.

Francisco met Rearden again at James Taggart's wedding reception, on September 2, 2018. He made a few sarcastic remarks at James Taggart's expense; for instance, when James Taggart began to boast of the "replacement" of "the aristocracy of money," Francisco said that the replacement was actually "the aristocracy of pull." But Francisco had not come merely to make himself unpleasant. As he had done at Lillian Rearden's dinner, Francisco was actively cultivating his relationship with Rearden. Rearden sardonically asked him whether he was "looking for conquests." In answer, Francisco said, "Yes, I have found one who will be my greatest and last." By whom Francisco meant Henry Rearden himself, though he would not explain that until much, much later.

It was on that occasion that Francisco warned Rearden, in no uncertain terms, never to buy the stock of D'Anconia Copper, nor deal with D'Anconia Copper in any way, shape or form. (Rearden would forget that advice on a critical occasion, and a load of copper that he thought would be delivered without incident wound up on the bottom of the [[Caribbean Sea]].)

In all his various meetings with Rearden, Francisco repeatedly sounded one central theme: that Rearden, by continuing to give of his talents to society, was supporting those who not only did not appreciate his talents but in fact intended to punish him in any way that they could. On one occasion, Francisco asked: {{cquote|If you saw [[Atlas]], the giant who holds the world on his shoulders—if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, and the harder he worked, the more the world pressed down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?}}

Rearden said, "I...don't know. What...could he do? What would ''you'' tell him?"

Francisco answered, "To shrug."

Two incidents nearly ended any hope that Francisco had of convincing Rearden to "shrug off" his burden. One, as mentioned, was the incident in which Rearden had rashly contracted with D'Anconia Copper to deliver a load of copper to him, but that load ended up at the bottom of the sea. At that time, Francisco had said to Rearden, "I swear to you, by the woman I love, that I am your friend." The other was when Henry Rearden discovered, on May 28, 2019, that Dagny Taggart was the woman whom Francisco loved—but Henry Rearden had been having an affair with Dagny himself. In a jealous rage, Rearden hauled off and slapped Francisco across the face with the back of his hand. Francisco summoned all his self-discipline not to strike back.

== Directive 10-289 ==
On May 1, 2019, the [[United States]] Bureau of Economic Planning and Natural Resources issued [[Directive 10-289]], under which all persons would be legally attached to their jobs, ''and'' all inventions and other intellectual property would be nationalized and become an intellectual common. Francisco called Dagny and simply asked her whether she had yet received news of what he called "the moratorium on brains."

Within twenty-four hours, Dagny Taggart had disappeared. Then on May 15, John Galt told Francisco that he had discovered, from his position as a spy in the Taggart Terminal, where Dagny might be found. He then told Francisco that he should go to her and tell her of the strike, saying that he had "earned" this chance. From Galt, that was a significant concession, because Francisco knew that John Galt had fallen in love with her.

Francisco did go to see her. But he did not tell her the secret of the strike. He ''did'', however, tell her the secret of his sham playboy persona, and his deliberate acts to destroy his company.

He was probably on the point of winning her final defection when a special bulletin broke on the [[radio]]: the eight-mile-long [[Taggart Tunnel]] through the [[Rocky Mountains]] had been demolished in a colossal wreck that was the result of a series of thoroughly bad, and probably politically motivated, dispatch decisions. Among other things, the Taggart line's signature coast-to-coast express, the Comet, had been sent into the tunnel pulled by a [[coal]]-burning steam locomotive, not the [[Diesel]] locomotive that was the only sort of locomotive that was safe to use in the tunnel. The Comet had stopped halfway in the tunnel after the engineer and everyone else on board had been asphyxiated. (The fireman had managed to run to the western adit of the tunnel and was thus the only survivor.) Then a [[United States Army]] freight special crashed into the rear of the stalled passenger train, and the resulting explosion sealed the tunnel forever.

Dagny immediately left to return to New York, though Francisco begged her, "In the name of everything held sacred to you, don't go back!" He probably realized that Dagny continued to function in a society that did not thank her, because she loved her work too much to leave it.

== The scab ==
Following the disastrous meeting with Dagny and Rearden, the one in which Rearden had slapped him across the face in a jealous rage, Francisco prepared to take his annual one-month vacation in [[Galt's Gulch]]. By now the Gulch was almost self-sufficient; Midas Mulligan bought a limited number of goods, possibly including [[steel]], from the outside. (Where he got them, the novel never says, but he might have gotten them from the same [[black market]]eers who bought their goods from none other than Ragnar Danneskjöld.)

But on May 31, Francisco then heard the dreadful news that [[Dagny Taggart]] was overdue to return to an airfield in Colorado, and was missing and presumed lost in the mountains. Francisco delayed his usual coming to the Gulch for days while he searched the mountains for the wreckage of her aircraft. Finally he could stay away no longer, and came to the Gulch to pay his respects to John Galt. Then Galt surprised him by saying that he had a [[scab]] staying in his house. This was something that Francisco positively had to see. He was shocked to discover that the "scab" was Dagny herself. She had indeed crash-landed, ''in the Gulch,'' after trying to follow one of John Galt's recruitment flights—but now that he had found her alive, he was able to call off his search and remain in the Gulch for the rest of June.

During Dagny's stay in the Gulch, Francisco gave her a tour of D'Anconia Copper Number One. Dagny observed that he transported his copper ore to the valley floor on [[mule]]back, and suggested that he build a railroad instead. At first he protested that laying rail would be too expensive, but Dagny said with complete confidence that she could build a railroad easily and inexpensively. But in the middle of her presentation, she lamented that she could not lay such a short stretch of rail and abandon an entire transcontinental system.

John Galt listened to this, and sternly told her that if she decided to remain in the Gulch, she would have to hear, in excruciating detail, about every failure of Taggart Transcontinental. Dagny asked for time to consider her decision.

Francisco then invited Dagny to stay at his house, rather than at John Galt's house. Dagny then said that John Galt had engaged her as his cook and housemaid, and therefore had the prior claim on her. John at first asked her to make the decision herself, as an [[adult]], but she insisted that the decision belonged to him, as her employer. John Galt then turned to Francisco and refused the permission. The two men realized at once that Dagny had been testing their commitment to the philosophical principle that John Galt had just finished outlining:{{cquote|Nobody stays in this valley by faking reality in any manner whatever.}}

At the end of the month, Dagny decided to return once again to the outside world, saying that she would continue to fight for John Galt's principles in that arena. Francisco admired her courage, but knew that any such effort by her was futile.

== The conquest of Henry Rearden ==
Francisco would not see Dagny again until the next winter. As the fall approached, he laid his plans to complete the destruction of D'Anconia Copper. He knew that the People's State of [[Chile]] intended to nationalize all his remaining holdings. So he quietly placed explosive charges in all his facilities, timed to explode at the moment that the Chilean parliament would call itself to order to consider the nationalization bill.

This happened on September 2, 2019. The next day, New York City's scrolling calendar display showed, not the date of September 3, but Francisco's personal message of defiance and vindication:

{{cquote|Brother, you asked for it!}}

Francisco signed that message with all his names in full.

Then he applied for a job at Rearden Steel, not under his true name, but under the name of Frank Adams. He signed on as a furnace foreman. He learned quickly that the Unification Board was moving several workers into the plant who had no experience in a steel mill. When he had decamped from Chile for the last time, he had taken several of his best white- and blue-collar workers with him. He presumably brought one of these into Rearden Steel to back him up against whatever act of violence might break out.

Sure enough, on October 20, the pressure campaign began. The union at the plant petitioned the Unification Board for a raise. Three days later, the Board turned them down. Then the newspapers brought out sob story after sob story about the workers at Rearden Steel. Francisco knew exactly what was going on, and alerted John to be ready to move at a minute's notice to get Hank Rearden out. When, on October 31, the [[Internal Revenue Service]] slapped a phony tax lien on Rearden, Francisco knew that the storm could break at any time.

On the afternoon of November 4, he learned the final details of the plot against Rearden. Five government men would meet Rearden in New York, and explain the Steel Unification Plan, under which all the steelmakers of the country would work "as a team" and be paid according to the blast furnaces they owned, regardless of productivity (or lack of it). On that very day, a riot would break out at the plant, to try to intimidate Rearden into accepting the Plan.

Francisco got word to John Galt that he should get to the Reading Airport at once and prepare to break out Rearden's plane for a flight to the Gulch. He then went straight to the mills superintendent with what he knew about the riot to come. The super tried to get help from the police, but none was forthcoming. So Francisco organized the regular employees as a [[militia]] to fight the rioters when the riots broke out. Henry Rearden returned to the mills when the riots were in their full fury, and Francisco had to intervene personally to rescue Rearden from two thugs who had clubbed Rearden senseless.

After Rearden came to himself, Francisco went to see Rearden in his office. At last Rearden was ready to hear Francisco's great secret, and to follow Francisco wherever he led him. Rearden thanked him profusely and, as a sign of friendship, called Francisco by his first name. Francisco, in turn, called Rearden by his short name, "Hank."

Francisco summoned his assistant to drive Rearden back to his apartment, and then to the Reading Airport. He instructed Rearden to take everything ''objectively'' valuable that he could carry, and take some warm clothing. Rearden followed his instructions and let the assistant help him.

Francisco then told all of Rearden's regulars that Rearden had now chosen to "vanish" from the world. He flew five of them, in his own aircraft, to the Gulch, and arranged for the others to follow him there on the ground. With the result that Henry Rearden's mills fell silent for the first time since their founding.

== The rescue of John Galt ==
On November 12, Ragnar Danneskjöld landed in the Gulch. With his usual cargo of gold, he brought a dire piece of intelligence: that [[Mr. Thompson]] intended to deliver a speech "on the world crisis" on November 22. John Galt summoned the Committee of Safety (consisting of John, Francisco, Ragnar, and now Henry Rearden) and informed them all that he, not Mr. Thompson, would deliver a speech to the world that night. This Galt did. The next day, against Francisco's advice, Galt went back to New York. Francisco was not a "nail biter," but if he ever came close to doing that, this was the time.

Three months passed with no word from Galt, other than a gazette of sorts describing the decline and eventual shutdown of Rearden Steel. Francisco informed Rearden, who laughed at him and said, "Francisco, Rearden Steel is right here in this valley!" In fact, Francisco and Rearden collaborated on building a real truck road, so that Francisco could move his copper to the valley much faster. He needed to—because Rearden did indeed re-found Rearden Steel, with a new kind of furnace that poured Rearden Metal. The last of the dependencies on the outside world disappeared.

On February 22, 2020, John Galt was arrested. Dagny Taggart gave every indication of having turned him in to the authorities in order to protect her railroad, but Francisco knew her better than that. He now had merely to wait for the final series of disasters to convince Dagny that any further "strikebreaking" was futile.

Ragnar Danneskjöld was back in the Gulch by then, having put his privateering ship in "mothballs" in a Norwegian fjord and begun settling his crew in the valley. But with the news of Galt's arrest, the men in the valley cried out for leadership to get him back. Ragnar obliged. He organized the Galt's Gulch Air and Land Militia, with half the men in the valley participating, using every aircraft available. Francisco served as the chief of intelligence.

He got word to Dagny, leaving only a telephone number for her to call when Galt was in danger. Meanwhile, Ragnar infiltrated Manhattan Island with his militia, and set up "camp" in multiple "safe houses" (actually, safe ''apartments'') around the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, where the authorities held Galt. But they did not dare storm the hotel; the authorities would almost certainly kill Galt before they could get close.

Francisco did not have to wait long. During the abortive presentation of the "John Galt Plan for Peace and Prosperity," John Galt made a rapid movement on a stage so that millions of people, watching on the still-new medium of [[television]], would see plainly that someone had been holding a [[gun]] on him. Galt then said, "Get...out of my way." After that, the authorities stopped transmission.

Dagny called Francisco almost immediately afterward. She warned him that the authorities were going to fly Galt to the [[State Science Institute]] campus near Lyme, [[New Hampshire]], and there put him to the torture. Francisco instructed Dagny to go back to her apartment, change clothes, pack up her jewelry, valuables, and some warm clothing, and meet him in forty minutes at a corner near the Terminal. En route to the rendez-vous point, Francisco noticed a number of people fleeing New York, with their personal belongings lashed to the roofs of their cars. Dagny came to him on time, and, hand upraised, declaimed,{{cquote|I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}

Then Dagny told him why those people were in such a hurry to get out of the city: a malfunction at the notorious "[[Project X]]" had destroyed the [[Taggart Bridge]] across the [[Mississippi River]].

Dagny and Francisco got off Manhattan in a hurry, but not by the usual route. How they got to Francisco's aircraft, or even where that aircraft rested, the novel does not make clear. Obviously the entire Galt's Gulch Militia had to decamp with them.

Dagny, Francisco, Hank Rearden, and Ragnar Danneskjöld flew together to New Hampshire, with the militia keeping formation with them. Ragnar gave the order that he and his companions would rescue Galt themselves, with the militia standing by. That rescue turned out to be ridiculously easy—because the kind of men who were guarding the facility where John Galt was held prisoner did not have the best minds in the world.

The four of them captured the "Project F" building easily, killing five guards in all and incapacitating the rest. Ragnar had planned the operation well, and adapted quickly as the four captured and interrogated some of the guards.

Then came the time for the actual rescue. Francisco was not at all sure that they had arrived in time. So after Ragnar had picked the lock on the torture chamber door, Francisco entered first, holding out his arm to bar the way to the others. He caught sight of Galt, lashed to a mattress but very much alive and without a mark on him. Francisco lowered his arm, and the rescue party rushed inside.

Of the four rescuers, Francisco found the fact of what John Galt had endured hardest to take. He swore to hunt down Galt's torturers and kill them, but Galt told him that such a course would be not only unavailing but unnecessary. Hank Rearden and Ragnar Danneskjöld said nothing; they concentrated on freeing Galt from his bonds, and then Ragnar systematically destroyed the torture apparatus while Rearden and Francisco helped Galt to dress. Then the party took him out of the building and to Francisco's plane, which was waiting on the lawn of the State Science Institute campus, and took off for the Gulch. As they passed over New York, the city was plunged into darkness as the power grid failed catastrophically and permanently.

Francisco now devoted his full attention to his one copper mine, and had plans laid to drive or sink more mines, in a society that would have better respect for the rule of law. He even had designed a new type of smelter that would allow him to process his ore much more efficiently, and looked forward to supplying Henry Rearden with large quantities of copper with which to make his new Metal.

{{endspoiler}}

== Typology ==
Francisco is one of the three primary [[anti-villain]]s of ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''; the other two are [[John Galt]] and [[Ragnar Danneskjold]]. He is not so much a type as a larger-than-life figure that was one of Ayn Rand's examples of a complete man. He is a productive genius who decides to show what would happen if someone were to devote such genius to the deliberate impoverishment of a company that is under threat of nationalization. The purpose is to show that a man of the mind can always defend himself against the worst attacks of a society that rewards failure and punishes success. The price is high: in this case, the destruction of a fortune that has lasted for centuries. But the prize is much more valuable: simple [[liberty]].

Francisco is an "anti-villain," and not a ''hero'', for this reason: all of Francisco's life-altering decisions were made in advance of the primary action of the novel. A literary ''hero'' makes his life-altering decisions ''in the course'' of the story, which is why Henry Rearden is actually the hero of this novel, even if he finally follows Francisco's lead.

Francisco also indulges in self-parody as cover for his activities: he pretends to be a "Latin lover." But his actual personality is more like that of the original ''conquistadores,'' like [[Hernando Cortez]] and [[Francisco Pizzaro]], from whom Francisco probably got his first name.
{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Anconia, Francisco}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:40:28Z

DonauKind: Undo revision 962277 by Aschlafly (talk)Do you even know what the Second Law says? It ONLY applies to closed systems!

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:30:28Z

DonauKind: "Spontaneously" is an important word. Otherwise your fridge would violate the Second Law.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:29:16Z

DonauKind: Removing false statement AGAIN... Please discuss before reverting.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:26:00Z

DonauKind: /* The three forms of the Second Law of Thermodynamics */ The Second Law applies only to closed systems.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

Because there are no perfectly closed systems, the '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' holds that everything becomes more disordered over time, in the absence of intelligent intervention.

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:25:28Z

DonauKind: Discuss this.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

Because there are no perfectly closed systems, the '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' holds that everything becomes more disordered over time, in the absence of intelligent intervention.

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

==The three forms of the Second Law of Thermodynamics==
There are three different types of systems that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can apply to:

* Isolated system - Does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings
* Closed system - Exchanges energy, but not matter, with its surroundings
* Open system - Exchanges both matter and energy with its surroundings

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:24:50Z

DonauKind: Undo revision 962270 by DonauKind (talk)Restoring accurate edit. Discuss before reverting.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

Because there are no perfectly closed systems, the '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' holds that everything becomes more disordered over time, in the absence of intelligent intervention.

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the [[atheistic]] [[Theory of Evolution]] and [[Theory of Relativity]].

==The three forms of the Second Law of Thermodynamics==
There are three different types of systems that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can apply to:

* Isolated system - Does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings
* Closed system - Exchanges energy, but not matter, with its surroundings
* Open system - Exchanges both matter and energy with its surroundings

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:20:09Z

DonauKind: That's wrong too. Even intelligent intervention can't reduce entropy in a closed system. To say it can is to misrepresent the Second Law.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the [[atheistic]] [[Theory of Evolution]] and [[Theory of Relativity]].

==The three forms of the Second Law of Thermodynamics==
There are three different types of systems that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can apply to:

* Isolated system - Does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings
* Closed system - Exchanges energy, but not matter, with its surroundings
* Open system - Exchanges both matter and energy with its surroundings

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T04:16:42Z

DonauKind: Undo revision 962266 by AschlaflyThe Second Law has nothing to do with evolutionism and we shouldn't say it does. Please discuss before reverting this again.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

Because there are no perfectly closed systems, the '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' holds that everything becomes more disordered over time, in the absence of intelligent intervention.

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

==The three forms of the Second Law of Thermodynamics==
There are three different types of systems that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can apply to:

* Isolated system - Does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings
* Closed system - Exchanges energy, but not matter, with its surroundings
* Open system - Exchanges both matter and energy with its surroundings

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:James Taggart

2012-02-17T03:44:50Z

DonauKind:

When you say things like "Taggart was born in 1977" can you make clear that this is based on the film instead of the novel? Apart from that, I love the articles! It's a fantastic book. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 22:44, 16 February 2012 (EST)

Talk:James Taggart

2012-02-17T03:44:20Z

DonauKind: Created page with "When you say thing slike "Taggart was born in 1977" can you make clear that this is based on the film instead of the novel? --~~~~"

When you say thing slike "Taggart was born in 1977" can you make clear that this is based on the film instead of the novel? --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 22:44, 16 February 2012 (EST)

James Taggart

2012-02-17T03:41:26Z

DonauKind:

'''James "Jim" Taggart''' (1977-2020?), in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was President of the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]. But instead of being a productive businessman, James Taggart sought to [[profit]] by obtaining and trading various government favors. But his actual motive was not so much the effective mulcting of the public, or even of businessmen more productive than he. His motive was the destruction of the productive, a motive that stemmed entirely from jealousy. He carefully hid that motive even from himself, until the day came when he caught himself attempting to inflict pain on another man when that act had no profit in it. On that day, he suffered a complete neuropsychiatric collapse. Whether he lived or died immediately after that, is unclear.

Taggart is an example of a corporatist businessman of the sort who nearly destroyed British industry under the system that operated from 1945 until the election of [[Margaret Thatcher]].

{{spoiler}}
== Background ==
James Taggart was born in 1977, the son of the President of the TTRR and the descendant of Nathaniel Taggart, the original founder. But even as a child he showed that he was not made of the same stuff of which Nathaniel Taggart was made.

His sister [[Dagny Taggart|Dagny]] definitely was, and he knew it and resented it. He once told her that, though she was named after their (great) grandmother Dagny, wife of Nathaniel, in temperament she better resembled Nathaniel than Old Dagny. Young Dagny took that as a compliment, a thing that James Taggart perhaps never understood.

One particular episode from their adolescence both illustrated his attitude and served as a prelude to things to come. His father made him a present of a motorboat, and the dockmaster at the Taggart family compound started to teach him how to drive it. The lesson did not go well. Then, in frustration, James turned to [[Francisco d'Anconia]], a boy nearly three years younger than he who was visiting at the time, and challenged him to drive the motorboat. Francisco not only drove it; he demonstrated almost as much proficiency as an adult might be expected to have. James Taggart resented that encounter, and Francisco, ever since.

James Taggart attended college at the age of sixteen. When he graduated (1998), he took his first job with the railroad—in its Public Relations department. In sharp contrast, his sister Dagny, five years his junior, started working as a night telephone operator at a local railroad station. From there she would work her way through the Operating Department.

== The San Sebastián Line ==
James Taggart became President of the TTRR on September 2, 2011. One of his first acts was to start extending the railroad's Texas line south to [[Mexico]]—the San Sebastián Line. Recently, Francisco d'Anconia had started to drive mines in the Sierra Madre mountains. No reputable geologist suspected that he would find anything of value there. But Jim Taggart trusted Francisco's business judgment and planned the San Sebastián Line to take advantage of it. (Francisco d'Anconia had inherited his family's [[copper]] [[mine|mining]] empire, D'Anconia Copper SA of [[Argentina]], in 2003.) The People's State of Mexico granted the TTRR a 200-year guarantee of its property rights.

The Vice-President in Charge of Operations resigned immediately. So did two members of the Board of Directors, and possibly the chief engineer (though he might have resigned separately). Jim Taggart slogged on, but progress on the San Sebastián Line stalled, with delay after delay.

Ironically, Dagny Taggart solved the problem of the San Sebastián Line for Jim. On September 15, 2014, she gave Jim an ultimatum: make her Vice-President of Operations at once, or accept her resignation. She had been doing the work of the ineffectual interim Operating Vice-Presidents since 2011, so Jim acquiesced. Not long afterward, Dagny found a contractor who finished the San Sebastián Line within a year. It opened on New Year's Day, 2016.

== The Rio Norte Line and the Phoenix-Durango ==
The year 2016 found James Taggart faced with a difficult business situation—one made difficult by his own actions and attitudes, though he refused to admit it to himself. The Rio Norte Line, that served [[Colorado]], had fallen into disrepair, so much so that wrecks on the line were frequent, and the TTRR could not make a proper shipping schedule. Mr. [[Dan Conway]], the upstart head of the rival Phoenix-Durango [[Railroad]], was already taking customers away from the TTRR, because its line was newer and in better condition.

James Taggart had given an order for a new track to his friend [[Orren Boyle]], head of Associated Steel. That was back in August of 2015. Orren Boyle still had not filled that order, thirteen months later. Nevertheless, Orren was Jim's friend, and Jim was determined to "give him a break."

Dagny was having none of that. She overrode him and replaced the track order with [[Henry Rearden]]'s steel company. Not only that, but she ordered the rail made of Rearden Metal, the new [[alloy]] of [[copper]] and [[iron]] that Rearden had invented.

== Washington dealings ==
Jim traveled to [[Washington, DC]] to apologize to Orren. While there, he engineered two deals that he felt certain would solve his business problem and place Henry Rearden at less of an advantage. One of these deals was the "Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule," whereby no railroad was allowed to enter a territory that another railroad was already serving. In proposing this rule, the National Association of Railroads recalled the ruinous "rate wars" of the last centuries. The actual target was the Phoenix-Durango, which in nine months would have to cease operations in Colorado, because his presence there was in violation of the Rule.

The second was the Equalization of Opportunity Act, which would provide that no businessman would be allowed to be in more than one business at any given time. The target of this Act was Henry Rearden, who in addition to owning a steel company, also owned an [[iron]] [[ore]] mine and a [[coal]] mine, so that he would not have to buy ore or coal on the open market. As part of the negotiation for this deal, Jim had to make some promises to one [[Wesley Mouch]], who was Henry Rearden's Washington lobbyist, not to warn Rearden that any such thing was in the offing. The promises involved getting Mouch a job with the [[Mr. Thompson|Thompson]] administration.

During these discussions, Orren Boyle complained to Jim about service on the San Sebastián Line. Orren's complaint was that the TTRR was running only one passenger train a day, in antiquated rolling stock pulled by a wood-burning steam [[locomotive]]. Appalled, Jim promised to take care of the problem when he returned to New York.

Back in New York, Jim challenged Dagny about the service cutbacks. Dagny defended them, and also stated that she was moving everything of value out of Mexico as fast as she could, in the fear that the People's State of Mexico would [[nationalization|nationalize]] the railroad line and the San Sebastián Mines that they served.

As Dagny predicted, the Mexicans ''did'' nationalize the San Sebastián Railroad, and the mines. In response, Jim took full credit for the service cutbacks and the near-total evacuation. But what shocked him even more was the discovery that the San Sebastián Mines were worthless. That could only mean that Francisco d'Anconia had deliberately driven a mine into a mountain that could yield no useful minerals. Jim was heavily invested in D'Anconia Copper SA, and considered that Francisco d'Anconia owed him and the other stockholders an explanation for such foolish behavior. Francisco offered none, except to say that he had entered into the project for charitable motives, and hired men who needed work, regardless of their ability to perform—all the sorts of things that Jim's moral code called for, and none of which he could argue with.

== The Rearden Metal Controversy ==
In the middle of the project to reclaim the Rio Norte Line, the [[State Science Institute]] issued a report calling the claims for Rearden Metal "inconclusive." Many workers refused to work on the project, the railroad's stock crashed, and Jim left New York to flee from the publicity. Dagny found him and told him that she personally would renovate the Rio Norte Line and raise her own money to do it. She said that she would call the line the John Galt Line, recalling the question, "Who is John Galt?" that people often asked in despair or sarcasm in the context of the sick national economy. Dagny made only one demand of Jim:{{cquote|There is one thing that you can do for me, and you'd better do it: keep your Washington boys off. See to it that I get all the permissions, easements, and other waste paper that their laws require. Don't let them stop me. If they try...People say that our ancestor, Nathaniel Taggart, killed a politician for refusing a permission that he should never have had to ask. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I can tell you one thing: I know exactly how he felt about it, if he did. And if he didn't, I just might be minded to do it today to complete the legend. I mean it, Jim.}}

Not knowing whether Dagny was serious, Jim complied.

== Creation and Destruction ==
The John Galt Line, with its rails and even an entire bridge made of Rearden Metal, opened on July 22, 2017, with a highly successful first run. Again Jim was able to take credit for it in the public mind, so much so that a young woman, Cherryl Brooks, actually fell in love with him because she thought that he was the productive genius behind the line.

Jim saw in Cherryl a woman trying to better herself, a thing with which he had no patience. And he saw a way to make her pay for that error: he would marry her and make abundantly clear that she could never be good enough to be a railroad president's wife. And so he courted her and eventually proposed to her.

In the meantime, he saw the economic boom that [[Colorado]] was enjoying, due entirely to the excellent transportation afforded by the John Galt Line, now once again part of the TTRR system. And he determined, with the help of a number of unions and other like-minded organizations, to destroy it—by proposing a series of burdensome and often contradictory regulations.

The regulations went through in November of 2017. They produced the result that Jim Taggart had hoped for. But not all the results were as he predicted. The most spectacular result was one that worried him, at least to some degree: [[Ellis Wyatt]], who had developed a method for extracting [[oil]] from [[shale]], set fire to his oil fields and vanished without a trace. Those fields, referred to as "Wyatt's Torch," continued to burn for the rest of the period in the narrative.

== The Stock Crash ==
James Taggart married Cherryl Brooks on September 2, 2018. He invited all the great power brokers, and many businessmen, to his reception. Henry Rearden showed up, as did Dagny and Francisco d'Anconia. Jim Taggart offered a toast to the overthrow of the aristocracy of money, and Francisco made some crack about "the aristocracy of pull" which, he said, had replaced it.

Worse than that was Francisco's loud declaration that many of his mines had gone bust and that he faced insolvency. Jim was horrified. Francisco blew him off with another insouciant remark, this time saying that he was doing only the sort of thing that Jim would have wanted to see him do. Jim, Orren Boyle, and several others rushed out of the reception, in a vain attempt to contact their stockbrokers and bail out of D'Anconia Copper SA before it crashed.

== Directive 10-289 ==
In April of 2019, James Taggart was in Washington once again, in the office of Wesley Mouch, who now was the senior coordinator of the Bureau of Economic Planning and Natural Resources. With him were Orren Boyle; Mr. Clem Weatherby (also of the BEPNR); [[Fred Kinnon]], head of Amalgamated Labor of America; [[Floyd Ferris]] of the [[State Science Institute]]; and [[Mr. Thompson]], the Head of State. After a round of complaints about economic conditions, Mr. Thompson gave his assent to the promulgation of [[Directive 10-289]], an emergency regulation designed to freeze all economic activity at then-current levels. Jim Taggart's chief contribution to this was the recommendation that all [[science]] and [[engineering]] departments at all major universities would close, to satisfy Point Four of the Directive, which provided that no new inventions would be brought on-line. Floyd Ferris relished the idea of being the employer of last resort for "those who prove[d] cooperative" among university faculty.

But by far the most important implication of Directive 10-289 was the requirement that all recent inventions be turned over to the [[public domain]] through the use of "gift certificates." Floyd Ferris expressed his concern that "the guiltless man" would prove intractable in this regard. But Jim Taggart had an answer to that, too: he could prove that [[Henry Rearden]] and his sister [[Dagny Taggart|Dagny]] had been having an affair (information that he had from Henry's wife [[Lillian Rearden|Lillian]]), and such information would be quite valuable for [[blackmail]]. He won an increase in freight rates from the sale of this information.

The Directive took effect on May 1, 2019. Dagny, furious, marched into Jim's office, threw a newspaper at him, and said,{{cquote|There's my resignation, Jim. I won't work as a slave, or as a slave driver.}}

Jim hired a friend of his, one Clifton Locey, to replace Dagny. He little knew how disastrous an appointment that would be.

== The Taggart Tunnel Collapse ==
In the second week in May, Mr. Charles "Chick" Morrison, another Washington official, went on a "whistlestop tour" of the country. He demanded a [[Diesel]]-electric engine for his train. How Clifton Locey found one, Jim did not know, nor did he inquire.

Then in the early morning of May 28, 2019, Jim was awakened when Mr. Kip Chalmers, traveling to [[California]] to seek election to the Legislature from that State, sent him an angry telegram from Winston, Colorado:{{cquote|Am held up on the Comet [the TTRR's transcontinental flagship] at Winston, Colorado, due to the incompetence of your men, who refuse to give me an engine. Have meeting in [[California]] of vital national importance. If you do not move my train at once, I'll let you guess the consequences. Kip Chalmers.}}

Jim called Locey and roared at him, saying that he'd never heard of the Comet being held up, and at least when Dagny ran the Operations department, Jim "wasn't awakened in the middle of the night over every spike that broke in [[Iowa]]—Colorado, I mean!" Locey assured him that he would take care of the matter as soon as possible.

But when Jim came into the office, he received with horror the news of the destruction of the [[Taggart Tunnel]] and the loss of the Comet (with everyone aboard) and an [[United States Army|Army]] munitions train. This time, when Jim tried to contact Locey, Locey was unavailable, apparently with some kind of medical condition. Jim first drafted his own letter of resignation, and then rushed to Dagny's old office (he no longer thought of it by any other name) and roared at her assistant, [[Eddie Willers]], demanding that he tell where she had gone. In the middle of his tirade, Dagny returned. Jim rushed back to his office, destroyed his letter of resignation, and let Dagny handle matters with no further interference.

== Dagny's Second Disappearance ==
That night, Dagny announced her intention to travel west, again toward Colorado, to supervise the laying of track to complete a new route that would bypass the now-destroyed Taggart Tunnel. Three days later came a report that Dagny Taggart had last been seen flying into the [[Rocky Mountains]] in a monoplane, and was long overdue. Search-and-rescue authorities listed her as missing and believed dead. With her disappearance, all plans for laying new track came to nothing.

== The Railroad Unification Plan ==
During the month of June, Jim Taggart negotiated the Railroad Unification Plan, under which all railroads would pool their revenues and be paid according to the track they owned. The TTRR stood to gain tremendously from this Plan, because the TTRR owned more track than anyone. However, Jim took a significant amount of [[schadenfreude]] from the news that the president of the rival Atlantic Southern Railroad committed [[suicide]]. But one part of the Plan annoyed Jim, though only slightly: [[Cuffy Meigs]], the Director of Unification, would often reroute or even cancel trains to serve his own friends. Jim wished that Cuffy Meigs would find other ways to grease the skids for his friends, but he couldn't complain, so long as the revenues poured in.

== Dagny's Return ==
On June 29, 2019, Dagny "returned from the dead." She refused to say where she had been in the last month. Jim and his friend Lillian Rearden induced Dagny to appear on Bertram Scudder's [[radio]] show to explain that she had not simply quit and vanished, as so many others had done, and to extol the "virtue" shown by Henry Rearden in signing away his right in Rearden Metal.

To their horror, Dagny proceeded to tell a national radio audience that she and Henry Rearden had been having an affair, and that the only reason why Henry Rearden had signed that "gift certificate" was blackmail. Bertram Scudder threw down her microphone when she said that, but the damage was done. Shortly thereafter, Bertram Scudder no longer had a radio program.

== Lillian's Visit ==
On August 5, 2019, a man named Ramirez headed a movement to turn [[Chile]] into a People's State. As part of this, he proposed to nationalize D'Anconia Copper SA. One of his aides, Rodrigo Gonzalez, created a special holding company (Interneighborly Amity and Development Corporation) that would receive all the D'Anconia assets, and invited Jim Taggart and his friends to invest. Jim invested heavily, as did Orren Boyle, who became president of the new firm.

That night, Jim Taggart received a visitor at his [[New York City]] townhouse: [[Lillian Rearden]]. She demanded his help in thwarting a [[divorce]] action that [[Henry Rearden]]'s attorneys were bringing. Through various means that the novel never explains, Henry's lawyers were on the point of succeeding in not only dissolving the marriage, but also ensuring that Lillian would receive no [[alimony]]. She had thought about seeking help from Bertram Scudder, but that man was now in total disgrace and unable to help anyone.

Jim Taggart probably couldn't help her even if he wanted to. But in the process of their conversation, the two of them began to talk about their respective motives for their actions. Lillian admitted freely that she sought to destroy Henry Rearden; Jim Taggart vociferously denied having any such motive. Lillian, who by now was getting [[Alcoholic drink|drunk]], called him a coward, and then spilled her drink on herself. Jim started to blot away the spill, and soon the two were intimate, though the novel suggests that they had no emotional attachment between then.

== Cherryl Taggart's Death ==
After Lillian had left, Jim's wife Cherryl returned to the townhouse. (She had left the townhouse earlier; Jim might or might not have learned that she'd been paying his sister a visit.) Somehow she had reason to suspect that Lillian had visited and that she and Jim had been imtimate. Jim brazenly avowed the tryst and said that Cherryl could do nothing about it, and Jim would never allow her a divorce. Cherryl ended by accusing him of being a killer for the sake of killing, and before Jim could reply to that, she screamed and left the townhouse for the last time.

Jim learned later that she had jumped into the East River. He briefly visited Dagny, not so much seeking sympathy as to hold himself blameless in her death. Dagny ordered him away, and the two of them never spoke of Cherryl Taggart again.

== The D'Anconia Copper Debacle ==
On September 2, he asked Dagny into his office, where he began to make a speech complaining that, despite the Railroad Unification Plan and all his deal-making, Taggart Transcontinental was losing money. As he continued to talk to Dagny, he became increasingly agitated, and finally roared at her that she ought to help him in his role as President of the TTRR, because he was her brother. Dagny responded by quietly repeating to him a common parentage epithet.

Then at 10:00 a.m., Jim turned on the radio in his office, and asked Dagny to stay and listen. But the report he heard horrified him. Apparently, when Señor Ramirez had struck the gavel to call his parliament to order, an explosion had rocked the chamber. That explosion was actually several explosions at once, as the D'Anconia docks were demolished. Later, the Chilean and [[Argentina|Argentine]] authorities found that all of the D'Anconia Copper assets were demolished, and Francisco d'Anconia and all of the most qualified members of his workforce were nowhere to be found.

Jim immediately called Rodrigo and protested that Rodrigo had said that the investment would be safe. At the same time, Orren Boyle called him on another line, and Jim finally told the complaining Orren to shut his mouth, because he could say nothing else.

At midnight that night, Francisco apparently took another revenge. He had the scrolling calendar display changed to read,{{cquote|Brother, you asked for it!}}
Francisco signed that message with all his names in full.

== The Rearden Debacle ==
On the night of November 4, 2019, Jim happily attended a meeting with several of the top men from Washington, to persuade Henry Rearden to accede to the Steel Unification Plan. Rearden did attend, but he spent most of the meeting asking the Washington men to explain how they thought their system could continue. Jim said a total of two things that evening. His first contribution was to describe the Railroad Unification Plan to Rearden, when the Washington men asked him to—whereupon Rearden asked the others,{{cquote|Why do you ask the stooge to waste my time?}}
Calling him a "stooge" was an insult that Jim had by now come to expect from Rearden. But the other men were in control, and they described the Steel Unification Plan, saying that the Railroad Unification Plan was their model. Rearden asked them how long they expected him to last, and then asked what they thought could save them. That was when Jim said his second thing:{{cquote|Oh, you'll do something!}}
That was a mistake. Rearden had become less tractable as the meeting wore on, and now he said nothing further, but picked up his hat and coat and left the room. The Washington men called out to him not to leave "yet," but to no avail. Jim knew why they did not want Rearden to leave: a riot was in progress at his mills, and they did not want Rearden to be at those mills until the riot was all over. The reason for that was that the riot was started, not by Rearden's regular employees, but by a number of substitutes moved in by order of the Unification Board, a body set up under Directive 10-289.

Jim never heard exactly what happened when Rearden drove into his mills and found a riot taking place. But he heard what happened after that, and that revelation sent him rushing to Dagny's apartment to break it to her and beg her to retrieve a situation that was now catastrophic. Simply put, Rearden had quit and vanished. Even the attachment of Rearden's assets to satisfy a tax lien hadn't stopped Rearden; he had left everything behind, stopping only to clean out a wall safe in his apartment. Word had reached his mills, and then, before anyone could stop it, the most able members of his workforce vanished after him. With the result that Henry Rearden's mills were now standing idle, producing nothing at all.

Jim wanted Dagny to bring Rearden back. Jim did not know how he knew this, but he knew that Dagny knew where Rearden had gone. Dagny looked him straight in the eye, refused his request, and ordered him out of her apartment.

== This is John Galt Speaking ==
[[Mr. Thompson]] announced that he would speak to the nation on November 22, on the subject of the world crisis. Jim obliged the President by having Dagny accompany him to [[Madison Square Garden]], where Mr. Thompson was to speak. When Dagny realized that she would be called upon to participate, she refused. Before Jim or anyone else could tell her that she could not refuse, several technicians told Mr. Thompson that he couldn't get on the air. Mr. Thompson became furious and threatened to fire everyone, but that availed him nothing.

And then suddenly a voice began to speak:{{cquote|Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not speak to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is exactly what you are going to hear.}}

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim caught sight of Dagny giving a clear sign of recognition. Oddly enough, [[Robert Stadler]], the head of the [[State Science Institute]], who was also present, recognized that voice, too, as did Eddie Willers.

Then none of that mattered. The voice identified itself as [[John Galt]]. ''The'' John Galt, that everyone had been asking about for the last twelve years. And for three hours, this man, who called himself John Galt, ''boasted'' about having ''told'' all those productive men to quit and vanish!

Jim was furious, though at the time he didn't know why. When the speech was over, he was virtually ignored. Mr. Thompson did all the talking, including to Dagny, who had brazenly told the men to "give up and get out of the way," a thing she had told Jim on September 2, before that disastrous report on the D'Anconia nationalization had come in.

== The Torture Session ==
On February 22, 2020, John Galt was actually taken into custody. He turned out to have been a track walker in the Taggart Terminal in New York!

For three weeks, Mr. Thompson kept John Galt in the penthouse of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, trying to cut a deal with him. Jim half suspected that Galt wouldn't bite, and he didn't. Then on March 20, 2020, Mr. Thompson had Galt appear on national [[television]] to announce "The John Galt Plan" for the economy. Instead of cooperating, Galt took the opportunity to tell everyone to "get out of [his] way." (He also moved so swiftly when his turn came to speak that the bodyguard, with his gun, was revealed to the camera.)

Finally [[Floyd Ferris]] suggested something that Jim considered sensible: to take John Galt to the installation of "Project F" of the State Science Institute, and there subject him to electric shock until he agreed to cooperate. Jim, [[Wesley Mouch]], and Ferris were selected as the three who would conduct the session. Jim loudly told everyone present not to be "sissies" about it. Mr. Thompson threw up his hands, said that he couldn't help it, and told them to do whatever they wanted.

The three did take John Galt to the installation, where they stripped him, tied him to a mattress, and attached several [[electrode]]s from a special generator. Ferris laid it on the line with Galt: if he didn't start talking, his captors would start. Galt said nothing.

As the session began, Jim watched in fascination as John Galt's body twisted and turned under the shocks. But then Wesley Mouch started blubbering to Ferris that they didn't dare kill Galt, and that if Galt died, they all would die. Jim was about to tell Wesley to shut up, when suddenly the shocks stopped. The technician punched a button several times, pulled a lever up and down, and then kicked the machine, but the shocks did not restart. Ferris told the technician to find out what was wrong with the machine and fix it, but the technician hadn't a clue.

Then John Galt did something that Jim thought was extremely foolish: he actually ''told the technician what was wrong with his machine and how to fix it!'' Instead of doing what Galt had said, the technician backed away from the generator and then bolted from the room. Galt laughed at the three men who remained.

Jim now decided that if no one else was going to do anything, ''he'' would fix the machine. He barely understood what Galt was talking about—how was he supposed to know what the "vibrator" was?—but he started to take the back off the machine so that he could get at its insides. Wesley begged Jim to stop, saying that it was just as well that the machine had failed anyway. Jim shouted back,{{cquote|I don't care! I want to make him scream! I want...}}
And that's when Jim Taggart screamed out loud. For the first time, he now realized that his whole life had been about hurting those who could do things better than he could. Even his fury at Galt for telling all those men to quit and vanish was all about Galt taking those men out of his reach. For a minute, Jim saw the face of his late wife in his mind, and it was almost as though she were directly accusing him of murder in her death, and in the deaths of countless others. Jim couldn't stand it, and started to say, "No, no, no..." Galt said,{{cquote|I told you that on the radio, didn't I?}}
Jim couldn't answer. He collapsed to the floor where he was, and couldn't speak to anyone. He barely heard Floyd Ferris say something about getting him out of that building and getting him to a doctor. He let Floyd and Wesley half assist, half carry him out of the room and out of the building.

== Aftermath ==
The novel says nothing about what happened to Jim Taggart after that. Perhaps he was taken to a mental institution, but that would have availed little. Eventually even institutions like that couldn't help anyone, because all the power on the Eastern Seaboard failed permanently. Very likely, Jim Taggart ended up in the hands of a regional [[militia]] company. Eventually, he might have faced trial for some of his darker activities, with [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]] prosecuting, after John Galt had declared the strike over.
{{endspoiler}}

== Typology ==
James Taggart is the chief [[Literary type#Villain|villain]] in the novel. More to the point, he is a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]] of every small-minded individual who, jealous of the talents or productive capacities of those who can do things better than they, seeks to demean or even destroy such persons. They pretend to be serving the greatest good for the greatest number, but in fact their motives are far more dire. They pretend to be [[altruism|altruists]]; in fact they are [[spite]]ful.

[[Ayn Rand]] considered altruism and spite to be two sides of the same evil coin, and almost considered them a distinction without a difference. Almost, but not quite—the man known as "Non-Absolute" is an altruist who comes to realize that the policies he is supporting ''do not'' support the public good, and rebels against them, at the cost of his own life.

Jim is definitely worse than all the other villains, with the possible exception of Floyd Ferris. All the other "looters" do what they do in the pursuit of short-term gain. Ivy Starnes, daughter of Jed Starnes of the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]], did what she did in the pursuit of control. But Jim Taggart does what he does in order to destroy. He carefully hides this motive even from himself, until he can no longer hide it, and at that moment, his mind collapses completely.

{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taggart, James}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]

Second Law of Thermodynamics

2012-02-17T03:39:25Z

DonauKind: No it doesn't. There's plenty of evidence against evolution, but the Second Law isn't part of it.

The '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' states that heat can never flow from a cold body to a warmer one. An equivalent definition is that the [[entropy]] of an isolated system cannot decrease.<ref> “Another way of stating the second [[law]] then is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to [[work]] hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself -- and that is what the second law is all about.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 6 </ref>

Because there are no perfectly closed systems, the '''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' holds that everything becomes more disordered over time, in the absence of intelligent intervention.

According to this law, it is impossible to build a [[perpetual motion machine]] because increasingly entropy will inevitably derail the machine.

==The three forms of the Second Law of Thermodynamics==
There are three different types of systems that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can apply to:

* Isolated system - Does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings
* Closed system - Exchanges energy, but not matter, with its surroundings
* Open system - Exchanges both matter and energy with its surroundings

==Interpretation==
A simplification caused by misinterpretation says: disorder will increase within a closed system.

Actually entropy is a little more abstract and the second law of thermodynamics means something like this: the universe will always become increasingly uniform, that is: heat will spread until the entire universe has the temperature and energy level (in a closed system heat will always spread from a place where there is a lot of heat to a place where there is less until balance is achieved), forces will continue to work until a universal balance has been achieved.

In this final state the universe is one uniform space where nothing happens and no work (moving something) can be done since there are no above average concentrations of energy left.
This state is called maximum entropy and is said to be in perfect disorder (although intuitively its uniformity would seem to be a state of perfect order) because it has become impossible to determine what happened in the past. ''i.e.'' There are an infinite number of ways (histories of the universe) maximum entropy could have been reached.

==Entropy and disorder for dummies==

In this context "increasing disorder" means "that which happens if you let nature take its course".
Imagine your old room at your parent's house. Remember how easy it was to let the room turn into a uniform mess (disorder) and remember how hard it was to clean it up until it fit a specific, non-uniform design (order). Not cleaning up would always result in an increase of entropy in your room!

Now, in nature there is no one to clean up the universe, only chances. The chance of something becoming orderly is a lot smaller than the chance of something becoming disorderly (since there are far more possible disorderly states to choose from).

Alternatively one could think of how difficult it is to construct a house of cards, while almost everything that happens in nature will result in its collapse.

On a universal scale a tidy room would be a universe which has pockets of above average concentrations of energy (remember that E=mc^2 so this includes matter as well.)
A messy room would be a universe in which all energy is equally spread out.

The flow of energy (by heat exchange) to places with lower concentrations is called the "heat flow".

The often heard argument that this law disproves an eternal universe is true, since in that case maximum entropy would have been reached already. A counter-argument to this would be to suggest that the universe is still in the process of approaching maximum entropy.

==Liberal abuse of the second law of thermodynamics==

It has become common in recent years for [[Environmentalism|environmentalists]] to claim that the second law of thermodynamics implies limits to [[economic growth]]. Their reasoning is that because [[free energy]] in resources such as [[petroleum|oil]] decreases with time, then economic growth can only be finite. However, this simplistic [[liberal]] reasoning ignores the [[non-zero sum]] nature of [[free market economics]], whereby improvements in technology deliver gains for all at no further cost. Indeed one of the most vital economic goods, knowledge, can be said to be free from thermodynamic limitations entirely.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/a/2053] Discover Institute cofounder and futurist George F. Gilder put it eloquently as follows: ''Gone is the view of a thermodynamic world economy, dominated by "natural resources" being turned to entropy and waste by human extraction and use. Once seen as a physical system tending toward exhaustion and decline, the world economy has clearly emerged as an intellectual system driven by knowledge.''</ref> Liberals also vastly exaggerate the limitations that [[natural resources]] impose on human economies. Some estimate that the [[Earth]] can harbor 100 billion people. God Himself gives His explicit assurance that the Earth will be generous as long as the human race exists in [[Genesis]]: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Gen. 1:28, KJV)

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physics]]

Elevatorgate

2012-02-17T02:33:56Z

DonauKind: /* Aftermath of Elevatorgate */ Replacing irrelevant info with more aftermath.

[[File:Richard Dawkins pic.jpg|alt=Richard Dawkins|thumbnail|260px|right|[[Richard Dawkins]] ]]
'''Elevatorgate''' is a term commonly used to describe a scandal involving [[Atheism|atheist]] [[Richard Dawkins]]' inappropriate comments made to fellow atheist [[Rebecca Watson]]. In 2011, Richard Dawkins was widely criticized within the atheist community and in various press outlets for his insensitive comments made to atheist Rebecca Watson about an incident which occurred in an elevator (see: [[Richard Dawkins' Elevatorgate comments]]).<ref>
*[http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/07/08/atheist_flirting Richard Dawkins: Skeptic of women? - Salon, July 8, 2011]
*[http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/07/richard-dawkins-chewing-gum Sharing a lift with Richard Dawkins by David Allen Green - New Stateman - 06 July 2011]
*[http://gawker.com/5818993/richard-dawkins-torn-limb-from-limbby-atheists Richard Dawkins Torn Limb From Limb—By Atheists - Gawker]
*[http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-15/atheist-sexism-women/50416454/1 Atheists address sexism issues - USA Today]</ref> Specifically, Watson was propositioned after an atheist event in an elevator by a man who apparently was a fellow atheist during the early hours of the morning and she was upset about the incident. Watson has written about widespread [[misogny]] within the atheist community and she has received threats of rape.<ref>[http://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/ The Privilege Delusion by Rebecca Watson - Skepchick]</ref> Prior to the Elevatorgate incident, ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' magazine made the observation that atheists tend to be quarrelsome, socially challenged men (see also: [[Atheism and women]] and [[Atheism and rape]]).<ref>http://voxday.blogspot.com/2007/08/socially-autistic-atheist.html</ref>

The ''New Statesman'' reporter and fellow [[Philosophical skepticism|skeptic]] [[David Allen Green]] said he believed Dawkins was a [[sexism|sexist]].<ref>[http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/07/richard-dawkins-chewing-gum Sharing a lift with Richard Dawkins by David Allen Green - New Stateman - 06 July 2011]</ref> In addition, Green wrote: "Can Richard Dawkins still credibly pose as a champion of rational thinking and an evidence-based approach? In my opinion, he certainly cannot, at least not in the way he did before."<ref>[http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/07/richard-dawkins-chewing-gum Sharing a lift with Richard Dawkins by David Allen Green - New Stateman - 06 July 2011]</ref>

== Rebecca Watson and Elevatorgate ==

[[File:Rebecca-watson.jpg|thumbnail|200px|[[Rebecca Watson]]
 
 
(photo obtained from [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rebecca_watson_geek.jpg Wikimedia commons], see: [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en license agreement])]]
As a result of Elevatorgate, atheist Rebecca Watson wrote concerning Richard Dawkins:
{{cquote|This person who I always admired for his intelligence and compassion does not care about my experience as an atheist woman and therefore will no longer be rewarded with my money, my praise, or my attention. I will no longer recommend his books to others, buy them as presents, or buy them for my own library. I will not attend his lectures or recommend that others do the same. There are so many great scientists and thinkers out there that I don't think my reading list will suffer."<ref>[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/07/richard-dawkins-draws-feminist-wrath-over-sexual-harassment-comments/39637/ Richard Dawkins Gets into a Comments War with Feminists by Caitlin Dickson - The Atlantic Wire, Jul 06, 2011]</ref>}}

=== Allegation that Rebecca Watson was behaving hypocritically ===

Amanda Read wrote in the ''[[Washington Times]]'' that she believed Watson was behaving hypocritically and declared:
{{cquote|The point is that because the issue is [[sexism]] in the atheist movement, perceptions of sexism are not based on absolute principle, but on relative emotion.

Watson speaks out against the sexual objectification of women, but she apparently sees nothing wrong with the pinup calendars that she and her female atheist friends publish. [[PZ Myers|Myers]] defended her views on his blog, but only last year he linked to an interesting interview with Nina Hartley, a feminist atheist who sees nothing wrong with women performing as sex workers.

You see, sexism and the exploitation of women are not immoral to godless women as long as such things are on their terms.<ref>[http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/not-your-average-read/2011/jul/16/sexism-atheism-Dawkins-Watson-feminists-Skepchick/ Of sexism and atheism: Richard Dawkins gets in trouble with feminists, Washington Times, July 16, 2011]</ref>}}

== Previous incident of Richard Dawkins being unkind to a woman ==

In September of 2010, Richard Dawkins became nasty towards a woman in an audience he spoke before.<ref>http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/richard-dawkins-i-never-meet-people-who-disagree-with-me-2080451.html</ref>

For more information please see: [[Women's views of Richard Dawkins]]

== Aftermath of Elevatorgate ==

[[File:2404429188 ea8f1fc48b.jpg|thumb|250px|Survey data and website tracking data of prominent atheist websites indicate that in the Western World, [[Atheism and women|atheism appears to be significantly less appealing to women]]. According to the website tracking firms [[Alexa]] and Quantcast women frequent the website of richarddawkins.net significantly less than men.<ref>http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/richarddawkins.net</ref><ref>http://www.quantcast.com/richarddawkins.net#demographics</ref>
 
 
Recently, [[Vox Day]] and ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' magazine made the observation that atheists tend to be [[Atheism and women|quarrelsome, socially changed men.]]<ref>http://voxday.blogspot.com/2007/08/socially-autistic-atheist.html</ref>
 
 
([http://www.flickr.com/photos/constantweader/2404429188/ Flickr] photo, see [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en license agreement]) ]]
Although major press outlets have covered Elevatorgate<ref>
*[http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/07/08/atheist_flirting Richard Dawkins: Skeptic of women? - Salon, July 8, 2011]
*[http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/07/richard-dawkins-chewing-gum Sharing a lift with Richard Dawkins by David Allen Green - New Stateman - 06 July 2011]
*[http://gawker.com/5818993/richard-dawkins-torn-limb-from-limbby-atheists Richard Dawkins Torn Limb From L
imb—By Atheists - Gawker]
*[http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-15/atheist-sexism-women/50416454/1 Atheists address sexism issues - USA Today]</ref>, most of the commentary surrounding the events of Elevatorgate has been in the atheist blogosphere.

Concerning post Elevatorgate events one atheist blogger wrote:
{{cquote|There was then lots and lots and lots of [[Argybargy|argybargy]], and now it's being said gallons of misogynist men over the net are trying to shout down Rebecca Watson; that is explicitly so presented in this very recent broadcast [http://wearecitizenradio.com/2011/07/11/20110711-rebecca-watson-on-richard-dawkins-sexist-comments-and-the-atheist-community/ on Citizen Radio] featuring an interview of Watson (the part with Watson starts only a bit after 20 minutes into the recording, so skip the first 20 minutes).<ref>[http://heathen-hub.com/blog.php?bt=5857 ElevatorGate: Rebecca Watson & Richard Dawkins are not the droids you're looking for - Heathen Hub]</ref>}}

Subsequent to Elevatorgate there was 3 weeks of infighting within the atheist community.<ref>[http://synapses.co.za/elevatorgate-power-words/ Elevatorgate - the power of words]</ref>

=== Uphill battle of Rebecca Watkins and female atheists combatting atheist misogny ===

''See also:'' [[Atheism and rape]] and [[Atheism and women]]

Another atheist blogger wrote about Rebecca and her fellow female bloggers at the website Skepchick:
{{cquote|The fatal decision was to extend the fight to tackle the greatest problem remaining in modern skepticism – socially awkward male [[nerd]]s.

“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak - [[Sun Tzu]] “

The skepchick army, marshalling their forces, decided to attack the nerds their presumed weakest point – on the internet.

Unfortunately, and apparently a surprise for some, the internet is the perfect natural environment of the socially awkward nerd.<ref>[http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2011/07/elevatorgate-dawkins-strikes-back.html Elevatorgate: Dawkins strikes back]</ref>}}

As noted earlier, prior to the Elevatorgate incident, ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' magazine made the observation that atheists tend to be quarrelsome, socially challenged men.<ref>http://voxday.blogspot.com/2007/08/socially-autistic-atheist.html</ref>

===Conflict at TAM 9===

At "The Amazing Meeting 9", organised by skeptic and homosexual atheist [[James Randi]], Dawkins and Watson walked out of each other's talks in protest at each other's behaviour during the incident. Dawkins also announced that in future he would pay for childcare at Amazing Meetings, probably as a dig at Watson.

== Abundance of vitriol and a lack of calm and reasoned discussion post Elevatorgate ==

The blog Freethought Kampala described the aftermath of Elevergate thusly:
{{cquote|Elevatorgate is the unprecedented INTERNET WAR that erupted after Rebecca Watson (above) posted a video in which she discussed an ordeal she experienced in an elevator while attending the World Atheist Convention which took place in Dublin, Ireland, from June 3rd to June 5th, 2011.

During the months of July and August 2011, the atheist-skeptic blogosphere was ablaze with accusations, counter-accusations, verbal fights, moral declarations and insults as hundreds of bloggers and millions of their readers tried to determine whose assessment of the events narrated by Watson best represented the facts at hand.<ref>[http://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/elevatorgate/#more-2383 Elevatorgate - Freethought Kampala]</ref>}}

Subsequently the blog Freethought Kampala wrote in a blog post entitled ''Elevatorgate – Part 2 – The Failure of Skepticism'':
{{cquote|You would think that being skeptics, whatever disagreements arising from how the events surrounding and following from Elevatorgate were to be interpreted would be done calmly, rationally, and above all, skeptically.

But this is not what happened at all.

My concern is not so much about whether someone takes one view or another with regards to Elevatorgate. Indeed, even among the members of Freethought Kampala, there are different opinions on various aspects of the matter. My concern is about how the matter has been handled, the poor quality of arguments that have been advanced, the astounding amounts of hypocrisy on display, and above all the intolerant attitude towards viewpoints that don’t tow the radical gender [[feminism|feminist]] line – all this, among people that call themselves skeptics.<ref>[http://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/elevatorgate-part-2-the-failure-of-skepticism/ Elevatorgate – Part 2 – The Failure of Skepticism]</ref>}}

== Disharmony, factionalism and global decline of atheism ==
[[File:Hong Kong Christians at Gateway Camp.jpg|thumbnail|right|250px|[[Hong Kong]] Christians at Gateway Camp. In 2005, there were four times as many non-Western World Christians as there were [[Western World]] Christians.<ref>[http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=30077 Is Christianity taking over the planet?]</ref> See: [[Global Christianity]]
 
(photo obtained from [http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckln/4815046728/in/set-72157624550425162 Flickr], see [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en license agreement])]]

''See also:'' [[Atheist factions]]

Jacques Rousseau wrote in the Daily Maverick concerning Elevatorgate, "Some might observe that we indulge in these squabbles fairly frequently."<ref>[http://dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2011-07-13-sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones-but-words-can-rip-my-soul Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can rip my soul]</ref> An ex-atheist wrote: "As an Atheist for 40 years, I noticed that there is not just a wide variety of Atheist positions, but there exists an actual battle between certain Atheist factions.<ref>[http://www.atheism-analyzed.net/The%20Reasoning%20Atheist.htm http://www.atheism-analyzed.net/The%20Reasoning%20Atheist.htm Atheism Analyzed]</ref>

=== Decline of atheism and the explosive growth of global Christianity ===

See also: [[Global Christianity]]

In 2011, the ''American Spectator'' declared concerning research published in the ''International Bulletin of Missionary Research'':
{{cquote|The report estimates about 80,000 new [[Christianity|Christians]] every day, 79,000 new [[Islam|Muslims]] every day, and 300 fewer [[atheism|atheists]] every day. These atheists are presumably disproportionately represented in the [[Western World|West]], while religion is thriving in the Global South, where [[Charismatic movement|charismatic Christianity]] is exploding."<ref>[http://spectator.org/archives/2011/02/28/thriving-christianity Thriving Christianity]</ref>}}

== See also ==

*[[Women's views of Richard Dawkins]]
*[[Atheism and women]]
*[[Atheism and rape]]
*[[Atheism and marriageability]]
*[[Atheism and bestiality]]
*[[Richard Dawkins, atheist atrocities, and historical revisionism]]
*[[Richard Dawkins and pseudoscience]]
*[[Abrasiveness of Richard Dawkins]]

'''Comedy and satire:'''

*[[Essay: Ponies vs. atheism - Ponies win|Ponies vs. atheism - Ponies win]]
*[[Essay: The atheist and evolutionist helpline|The atheist and evolutionist helpline]]
*[[Essay: Does Richard Dawkins have machismo?|Does Richard Dawkins have machismo?]]
*[[Essay: Atheists say the darnedest things!|Atheists say the darnedest things!]]
*[[Essay: 10 telltale signs you are on your way to becoming an atheist nerd|10 telltale signs you are on your way to becoming an atheist nerd]]

'''Essays:'''

*[[Essay: Atheism: A house divided and in global decline|Atheism: A house divided and in global decline]]

==References==
{{reflist|3}}

[[Category: Richard Dawkins]]
[[Category: New Atheism]]

Talk:Richard Dawkins' Elevatorgate comments

2012-02-17T02:28:52Z

DonauKind: /* Nominate for Merge */ new section

While the notability of the 'elevatorgate' incident is questionable enough, there is certainly no need to go making an entirely separate article about the comments made by Richard Dawkins about it. [[User:DavidZa|DavidZa]] 21:37, 24 September 2011 (EDT)
:Are you a fan of Richard Dawkins? Could this be influencing your decision to not want Dawkins remarks' highlighted? Skeptic [[David Allen Green]] is of the opinion that the Elevatorgate scandal was notable. Plus, it was covered by some major press outlets. Lastly, I do think it is easier for the reader to not have to read the entire initial comments and then Dawkins subsequent explanation which made things worse in the main article. At the same time, I think it is important to make the comments easily available and a significant amount of people have viewed the page so far. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 21:46, 24 September 2011 (EDT)
::No, I think he just means it looks dumb. You'd do better to consolidate the two, and give a unified narrative of the incident.--[[User:AlexanderD|AlexanderD]] 22:22, 24 September 2011 (EDT)
:::Gentlemen, why don't you create your first Conservapedia articles and show me how it's done. I would like to learn from the masters. :) [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 23:38, 24 September 2011 (EDT)
::::Suit yourself, I guess..--[[User:AlexanderD|AlexanderD]] 01:04, 25 September 2011 (EDT)

== Nominate for Merge ==

I think this should be merged into the Elevatorgate article. The main article would make more sense with this information in there and having two articles on exactly the same thing is a waste of time. --[[User:DonauKind|DonauKind]] 21:28, 16 February 2012 (EST)