Paul Davies: Entropy Reverses

From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Thu May 08 2003 - 23:08:43 MDT

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    A analysis of why entropy might "appear" to reverse in an open universe.

    http://xxx.lanl.gov/list/astro-ph/new
    astro-ph/0305121
        Title: Black hole versus cosmological horizon entropy
        Authors: Tamara M. Davis (1), P. C. W. Davies (2), Charles H. Lineweaver
    University of New South Wales, (2) Macquarie University, Australia)
        Comments: 14 pages, including 6 figures, to appear in Classical and
    Quantum Gravity
        The generalized second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always
    increases when all event horizons are attributed with an entropy proportional
    to
    their area. We test the generalized second law by investigating the change in
    entropy when dust, radiation and black holes cross a cosmological event
    horizon.
    We generalize for flat, open and closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universes
    by
    using numerical calculations to determine the cosmological horizon evolution.
    In
    most cases the loss of entropy from within the cosmological horizon is more
    than
    balanced by an increase in cosmological event horizon entropy, maintaining
    the
    validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics. However, an
    intriguing
    set of open universe models show an apparent entropy decrease when black
    holes
    disappear over the cosmological event horizon. We anticipate that this
    apparent
    violation of the generalized second law will disappear when solutions are
    available for black holes embedded in arbitrary backgrounds.

    Or will it?



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