# Entropy Entropy permeates our every endeavor and has a natural tendency to **always increases over time**. There are more ways that things can go wrong than right. There are many disordered states and few ordered ones. Refer to Murphy's Law ^[“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”] > Entropy is a measure of disorder. And there are always far more disorderly variations than orderly ones ### The second law of thermodynamics > Disorder in the universe always increases, as it increases energy is transformed into less useful forms. Thus, the efficiency of any process will always be less than 100% - In the long run, nothing escapes the Second Law of Thermodynamics. *The pull of entropy is relentless. Everything decays. Disorder always increases.* ### Take Aways - the odds for a system to find order w/o energy expenditure are overwhelmingly low - usually one possible state / combination that represents order / the right answer - infinite states / combinations that represent disorder / wrong answers - you have to expend energy to create stability, structure and simplicity - to counteract the natural tendency of entropy - we cannot reverse entropy, but in the short term - we can create pockets of order. - If results are not coming, move on. It is not bad to move on from things faster. > “The ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order.” —Steven Pinker