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Mark_Friedenbach comments on Open Thread, Feb. 2 - Feb 8, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Gondolinian 02 February 2015 12:28AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2015 01:21:49PM 0 points [-]

I'm pretty sure Manfred is right. You drop a block of ice of unknown configuration into a cup of tea of known configuration, then your uncertainty about the system will grow over time. Of course entropy != temperature. You coudl say that the tea has zero entropy, but not zero temperature.

But what's the point of this thought exercise?

Comment author: passive_fist 02 February 2015 06:47:31PM 0 points [-]

The block of ice is not of unknown configuration. The block of ice in my example is at 0 K, which means it has zero entropy (all molecules rigidly locked in a regular periodic lattice) and thus its configuration is completely known.