The Laws of Nature

I hate entropy.

I feel like I spend my life in a constant battle to defy the laws of nature. In fact, maybe that's the long-sought answer to the question of how we should define life. If it has a compulsion to defy entropy, it's alive. Then again, by that definition, my children would be dead.

Now that I think of it, the physicist who first concluded that all natural systems tend toward maximum entropy must have been a parent. Or, at least, when he announced that law to the world, all the moms must have said, "Well, duh!" I think the law of entropy is probably the only rule my children willingly--even gleefully--obey.

The other day, my daughter cleaned her room. Entirely. By herself. (You could've knocked me over with a sub-atomic particle). I'd like to joke that it was the first indication that she is, in fact, alive. But the past eight years have been all too lively.

I'll buy the idea that systems tend toward minimum enthalpy. At any given moment, my system's energy is close to nil (it's all that time I spend fighting entropy). So of course, my children defy this law. Their energy never seems to run out, and rather than shut down when they get tired, they actually appear to ramp up.

Physics schmisics. I need a nap.