(In which Mr Blottisham is appalled, Professor Quillibrace is unhelpfully calm, and Miss Elowen Stray enjoys herself far more than she lets on.)
Blottisham
I’m sorry — I really must object at the outset.
Quillibrace
That’s usually a sign we’ve begun correctly.
Blottisham
You cannot simply remove time from thermodynamics. It’s right there in the name. Second law. Arrow. Irreversibility. This is basic stuff. Things run down. Eggs break. Cups smash. Everyone knows this.
Elowen Stray
Do they run down… or do they simply end up in places they don’t easily leave?
Blottisham
That’s exactly the sort of verbal trickery I mean.
Quillibrace
It depends what you think is happening when an egg breaks.
Blottisham
It breaks.
Quillibrace
Yes, but what breaks?
(A pause. Blottisham looks suspicious.)
Blottisham
The egg.
Quillibrace
No — the conditions.
Blottisham
Oh come now.
Elowen
I think what Professor Quillibrace means is that nothing is pushing the egg forward into brokenness. Once broken, there are simply far fewer ways for it to be… unbroken again.
Blottisham
Fewer ways? That sounds like defeatism masquerading as physics.
Quillibrace
On the contrary. It’s optimism carefully rationed.
On Entropy
Blottisham
And this business of entropy not being disorder — that really is the final straw. Entropy is disorder. That’s what everyone says.
Quillibrace
Everyone says it because it’s easy to say.
Elowen
And because “relational availability under constraint” doesn’t fit on a T-shirt.
Blottisham
Disorder is perfectly clear. My desk is disordered. Entropy increases. There we are.
Quillibrace
Your desk is not disordered. It is exquisitely specialised.
Blottisham
Specialised for what?
Quillibrace
Preventing you from finding anything.
(Elowen laughs.)
Elowen
So entropy isn’t about mess, Mr Blottisham. It’s about which rearrangements are easy to keep making, and which ones almost never happen again.
Blottisham
So you’re saying the universe has preferences?
Quillibrace
No. Preferences imply desire.
The universe has architecture.
The Scandal of No Arrow
Blottisham
But without time pushing forward, how do you explain the arrow of time? You can’t just wave it away.
Quillibrace
We didn’t wave it away. We put it down gently and stepped back.
Elowen
The arrow isn’t a force. It’s a slope.
Blottisham
A slope in what?
Elowen
In how hard it is to keep certain relations going.
Blottisham
Things fall downhill.
Quillibrace
Yes — but nothing tells them to.
(Blottisham opens his mouth, then closes it again.)
Blottisham
This is deeply unsettling.
Elowen
You’ll get used to it.
Blottisham
I doubt it.
Energy Without Loss
Blottisham
And now you’ll tell me energy isn’t lost either.
Quillibrace
Correct.
Blottisham
Then why can’t we get it back?
Elowen
You can. In principle.
Blottisham
Ah. In principle.
Quillibrace
Which is ontology’s way of saying: nothing forbids it, almost nothing supports it.
Blottisham
So the universe is technically reversible but practically obstinate.
Quillibrace
An excellent summary.
(Blottisham sighs heavily.)
Blottisham
I preferred it when time was in charge.
Elowen
Time was never in charge. It just had very good public relations.
Closing
Blottisham
So let me see if I understand.
Nothing pushes.
Nothing runs down.
Nothing is lost.
And yet everything behaves as if it does.
Quillibrace
Yes.
Blottisham
That’s outrageous.
Elowen
It’s also rather elegant.
Blottisham
I don’t like elegance.
Quillibrace
No. You like necessity.
(He stands, gathering his papers.)
Quillibrace
Fortunately for us all, necessity turned out to be optional.
(Elowen smiles. Blottisham stares into his cooling tea, deeply offended by the universe.)
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