Entropy Can Decrease
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The second law of thermodynamics, which asserts that entropy never decreases, is often regarded as a universal principle. However, this assumption merits re-examination. While entropy generally increases in systems dominated by repulsive forces, it decreases in domains governed by attractive forces such as gravity. This explains why the universe has not succumbed to “heat death” but has instead evolved into a greater organized structure, as stars and galaxies continuously aggregate from diffuse cosmic matter. The conventional view relies on the assumption that energy flows, such as heat transfer, always follow a decreasing gradient of temperature. This assumption does not necessarily hold in systems under attractive forces. Moreover, the second law describes only directional progression, whereas many natural processes are oscillatory or periodical. These observations suggest that entropy increase accounts for only a subset of natural phenomena. To address these limitations, we propose the Restoration Principle, which unifies entropy-increasing, entropy-decreasing, and oscillatory processes. Everything in the universe exists in different forms of energy, and all processes in the universe involve transformations among various forms of energy, driven by fundamental attractive or repulsive forces that aggregate or disperse components toward a stable state with a balanced energy distribution. When this balance is disturbed, systems spontaneously act to restore it. The Restoration Principle thus offers a more comprehensive framework for understanding natural evolution than the entropy-based view.
Author: Liu, Jerry Z.
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7103749694
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