alt Hacker NewsThis seems backwards. Entropy is a dispersive force — it favors distribution and disorder. But the universe clumps. Planets, stars, galaxies — all of them are low-entropy configurations.
So how did scattered dust particles form the planet we’re standing on… through entropy?
If gravity is just emergent from entropy, then it should be fighting against planet formation, not causing it. There’s a missing piece here — maybe coherence, resonance, or field attraction. But “just entropy”? That doesn’t explain formation. It explains dissolution.
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There is a whole article explaining it... if you don't read the article, how do you expect to know the idea?
You have it backwards. The lowest entropy state of the universe would be if there were no attractive forces, only repellent forces, as then all particles would be forced into something of an expanding lattice, but with all particles equidistant from all nearest neighbors (of the same type).
It is gravity which disrupts this and causes clumping, and that _increases_ entropy.
I know it's confusing because normally one would think of a cloud of gas as more disordered than the star it might collapse into, but that is not so. For one the star would be much hotter, and the motions of every particle in the star much more chaotic.
Entropy isn't a force. It doesn't "favor" anything. Its a property of statistics, information, and distributions.
Also why does this have that particular ChatGPT social media post rhythm to it? Please, Lord, tell me we haven't reached the point where people are writing HN comments w/ AI.