MY ADVENTURE WITH ENTROPY
Entropy: a measure of uncertainty or randomness; lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.

ARGUMENTS

✤ Origin
✤ Why Entropy?  ✤ Entropy Arguments
✤ Survival of the Friendliest
✤ Intergalactic Polemic
✤ Bibliography

ENTROPY becomes a hot topic. In addition to many scientific books specifically in physics, mathematics, information theory, biology, evolution, … there are dozens titles related to social entropy, cultural and economical progress … with all without exception reiterating that humanity on planet Earth is moving towards the higher level of order, ie. into the lower entropy. However, I am afrait that this is not entirely true and that we are in-a-long-run rather gradually declining into destructive disorder and chaos.

Pythagoras was the first who proposed that the Earth was round, sometime around 500 B.C. Around 350 BC, the great Aristotle declared that the Earth was a sphere, based on his own observations. But still in middle ages the dominant view was that the Earth is flat, as depicted in this collage below using the famous Flammarion engraving. Leaping into the 21st century we are not in much better shape. Growing number of people, especially in the United State are promoting flat Earth, often in well organized manner, renouncing our impressive advances in astronomy and space exploration. Even worse, a number of politician and decision makers, are often poorly educated and publicly rejecting science.

Anne Wojcicki, CEO of already famous > 23andME - in July 2 , 2021 interview with Ari Melber, MSNBC: "I think that this country really needs to invest in scientific education. …. so that people know how to make decisions. …. when I look at those numbers about vaccine hesitancy today, to me, that is illustrative of a lack of scientific knowledge and a lack of trust of the health care system."

By moving the RED DOT below to left or right, you could switch between centuries.

In 1888 astronomer and prolific writer Camille Flammarion published "L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire" in Paris. What remains most notable about this work was a single wood engraved image, by an unknown artist, which it published for the first time, known historically as the Flammarion engraving. This depiction is one of the most widely studied and reproduced historical interpretations of man's quest for knowledge of the universe.

> This rare panoramic view of Cracow: CRACOVIA METROPOLIS REGNI POLONIAE by Georg Braun & Franz Hogenberg was published in Cologne in 1618. Certain details would date the view to before 1596, when King Sigismund moved the capital to Warsaw, abandoning Wawel Castle.

> The European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), a revolutionary scientific project, under construction in Chilean Atacama Desert (not in Atlanta), will allow to address many of the most pressing unsolved questions about our Universe. Its 39-metre-diameter mirror will consist of self-adjustable 798 hexagonal segments providing images 16 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.