Chapter 170: Fittable Destiny

Chapter 170 -72: Fittable Destiny

“Yiyi, particle collision isn’t the same as cracking a walnut.”

On the notebook from before, Yu Xian drew two arrows moving toward each other, representing high-speed particles:

“You can imagine these two particles as two sports cars driving at full speed. The collider makes them crash head-on. In the instant of impact, besides the car bodies being smashed to pieces, the immense kinetic energy does indeed convert into mass—what you called ‘redundant new stuff’.”

Where the two arrows collided, Yu Xian drew a burst of explosive sparks, then drew countless rays shooting outward from the sparks:

“In this moment of extremely high energy, just as you thought, a lot of new particles that don’t normally exist are created. It’s like smashing two apples together and getting a bunch of oranges, grapes, or even a watermelon.”

“Huh? Are you guys studying physics or magic?” Shao Yiyi’s eyes went wide.

“Mind-blowing, right? This is Einstein’s mass-energy equation, the most famous formula in the history of physics: E=mc2,” Shi Zuozhou said, a mysterious look on his face, determined to frame physics like a sensationalized science show:

“In reality, mass and energy are fundamentally the same thing. They can be converted into one another.”

“But.” Yu Xian’s pen tapped heavily on the paper, interrupting Shi Zuozhou’s rambling pop-science lesson. He shook his head:

“The vast majority of these newly created particles are extremely unstable. They’re like brilliant fireworks. In an extremely short time after being created—sometimes only for a few billionths of a billionth of a second—they decay, annihilate, and turn back into ordinary particles or energy.”

He looked at Shao Yiyi and Wen Xiao:

“So, from a macroscopic perspective, nothing ‘redundant’ is actually created. Conservation of matter, conservation of energy—the books are balanced.”

“Oh… I see.” Shao Yiyi hunched her shoulders in disappointment, completely giving up.

“Well, I’m out of ideas then.”

“I was thinking, if it’s not a specific material or energy source, could ‘redundancy’ refer to something… more abstract?” Wen Xiao offered her own theory:

“In computer science, there’s a very important concept called ‘information entropy’.”

“Information entropy?” Shao Yiyi looked completely lost. She was probably the only one in the room who didn’t know what the concept meant.

Yu Xian and Shi Zuozhou had also learned about this concept in their thermodynamics and quantum statistical physics classes.

Simply put, entropy is a measure of disorder.

The second law of thermodynamics tells us that in an isolated and closed system, entropy never decreases; it can only increase or remain constant.

In other words, the world always tends to become more chaotic and more disordered.

Take your older cousin’s room, for example. Originally, it might be neat and tidy—an orderly, “low-entropy” state.

If it goes uncleaned for a few days, the next time you visit, clothes, cigarette butts, tissues, and socks are piled everywhere. This is “entropy” increasing, becoming chaotic and disordered.

If you put in the effort to help him clean up, the room’s “entropy” does indeed decrease, but your own body and the external environment will generate even more “entropy”.

In other words, a room won’t clean itself.

In an isolated system, without cleaning, ventilation, or intervention, “entropy” will only increase.

And information entropy…

“In information theory, ‘information entropy’ is a measure of uncertainty. The more uncertain and random an event is, the more information it contains, and therefore the greater its ‘information entropy’,” Wen Xiao explained to Shao Yiyi:

“For example, if I flip a coin and guess heads or tails, versus rolling a die and guessing which face lands up, the die’s ‘information entropy’ is definitely greater, because both its uncertainty and the amount of information it contains are greater.”

“Is it because a coin only has two possible outcomes, heads or tails, while a die has six sides and six possible outcomes?” Shao Yiyi asked.

“Yes.” Seeing that Shao Yiyi understood, Wen Xiao continued:

“If we view the world as a system that is constantly computing and evolving, then the work of a physicist is, essentially, to…”

Wen Xiao bit her lip, choosing her words carefully:

“…constantly extract the laws of this world, to ‘reduce the entropy’ of the world, turning chaos into order.”

She looked at Yu Xian and Shi Zuozhou, and said thoughtfully:

“Take the formulas and theorems in your field of physics, for example. Aren’t they just ways of analyzing systems that once seemed chaotic and disorderly to everyone? Physicists try to summarize random natural phenomena into formulas, thereby establishing order.”

“But, according to the second law of thermodynamics, the total entropy of a closed system can only increase, never decrease…” Shi Zuozhou picked up the thread:

“So, are you trying to say that, according to the laws of conservation, in order to balance this extreme order, to pay back this ‘entropy debt,’ nature must release more, even more extreme, chaos somewhere else?”

“Something like that. I’m wondering if it’s possible that the ‘entropy-reducing’ actions of physicists are actually accelerating the world’s overall ‘entropy increase’,” Wen Xiao affirmed, nodding vigorously. Her eyes were fixed on Yu Xian.

“I get it now!” Shi Zuozhou exclaimed, a look of sudden realization on his face:

“It’s like turning on an air conditioner in a sealed room. Even though the vent blows out cold air, lowering the local temperature, the unit’s external component is releasing even more heat into the room, causing the overall temperature of the room to rise.”