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Entropy
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy never decreases over time in an isolated system (one that is totally closed and does not interact with anything outside of itself). In practice, this means that any system becomes disordered, or homogeneous over time. Based on the Maxwell’s demon experiment, John Nefastis builds a machine that he believes will decrease entropy over time, thus violating the second law of thermodynamics. His unclear explanation for this involves the conversion of information entropy to heat entropy (even though the two concepts have nothing in common). Needless to say, when Oedipa tries out the machine, it does not work.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics Quotes in The Crying of Lot 49
The The Crying of Lot 49 quotes below are all either spoken by The Second Law of Thermodynamics or refer to The Second Law of Thermodynamics. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5
Quotes
“Communication is the key,” cried Nefastis. “The Demon passes his data on to the sensitive, and the sensitive must reply in kind. There are untold billions of molecules in that box. The demon collects data on each and every one. At some deep psychic level he must get through. The sensitive must receive that staggering set of energies, and feed back something like the same quantity of information. To keep it all cycling. On the secular level all we can see is one piston, hopefully moving. One little movement, against all that massive complex of information, destroyed over and over with each power stroke.”
“Help,” said Oedipa, “you’re not reaching me.”
“Entropy is a figure of speech, then,” sighed Nefastis, “a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow. The Machine uses both. The Demon makes the metaphor not only verbally graceful, but also objectively true.”
“But what,” she felt like some kind of a heretic, “if the Demon exists only because the two equations look alike? Because of the metaphor?”
Nefastis smiled; impenetrable, calm, a believer. “He existed for Clerk Maxwell long before the days of the metaphor.”
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The Second Law of Thermodynamics Term Timeline in The Crying of Lot 49
The timeline below shows where the term The Second Law of Thermodynamics appears in The Crying of Lot 49. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...on the outside. This man is the scientist James Clerk Maxwell, who famously thought that the second law of thermodynamics could be violated if some demon managed to sort hot from cold air inside a...
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