How to justify your laziness scientifically?

What are the main causes of laziness? How do I stop being so lazy? Is laziness an illness? In this article, we will give a small, on the one hand, humorous, but on the other hand, a completely scientific theory with which you can justify yourself in those moments when laziness got the better of you.

The fact is that in physics there is such a thermodynamic quantity as entropy. Its scientific value determines the measure of irreversible dissipation of energy. In other cases, it can also determine the likelihood of a certain macroscopic state occurring. However, let's say, “in everyday life” it is easier to understand the meaning of entropy as a measure of the disorder of the system: the less the elements of the system are subordinated to any order, the higher the entropy.

Here we will make a small clarifying remark about what order is. This is very important, because the situation when something is distributed evenly over the available space can be called disorder or chaos (if, for example, we are talking about garbage evenly thrown on the floor in the room). But a similar situation can be called order (if we are talking, for example, about a high-quality and evenly painted wall), well, it depends on what associations one has...

However, for the needs of this article, we will agree that, like all physicists and other scientists, we will understand by order the presence of some pronounced structure in the system (for example, the existence of specific objects at certain points in space), and by disorder, the even distribution of all types of matter in space. In this case, entropy is a measure of disorder.

At the moment, the universe is in relative order. We have many cosmic bodies, each of them has its own shape, size and properties, and they are all located in certain places. Thus, there is a certain structure in our system.

But, unfortunately, science has unconditionally proved that entropy in closed thermodynamic systems can only increase or remain unchanged. Thus, any system tends to disorder, i.e. to an even distribution of all available matter over the available space. This statement can be violated locally, i.e. in some areas of space, some of the elements that make up the system may strive for order, but the entire closed system as a whole always tends only to disorder or maintains the achieved level of disorder. In other words, if somewhere there is a little more order, then elsewhere the disorder becomes even bigger.

So if we apply the law of non-decreasing entropy (disorder) to the entire Universe as a whole, it turns out that one day all matter should be evenly distributed throughout the Universe. This will not leave any selected objects, such as stars or planets. The entire space will be absolutely evenly filled with a homogeneous porridge of various particles. And entropy (or disorder) will reach its ultimate maximum.

This condition is called the Heat Death of the Universe. There are different estimates as to when it should happen. In any case, this is one of the most distant end-of-world scenarios. If in the end the Universe comes exactly to such a state, then it will happen in a very, very many billion years.

Another important feature of entropy is that it increases only if something happens, and vice versa, if something happens, then the entropy necessarily increases. And if nothing happens, then the entropy at least remains unchanged.

But since any increase in entropy, i.e. disorder brings us closer to the Heat death of the Universe, it turns out that while nothing happens, then this end, at least, is not approaching. And as soon as certain events begin to occur, then the Heat death of the Universe necessarily approaches us in time.

Of course, a person cannot do absolutely nothing, he must at least breathe, his heart beats, other processes occur in the body. However, if a person just lies on the couch, then the entropy increases much more slowly than if the person starts to work actively. This means that the Heat death of the Universe, if a person is idle, is approaching more slowly than if a person is working.

This effect is, of course, very weak, numerical estimates are again very difficult, but in any case, the contribution of one person and his way of life to when the Heat death of the Universe occurs is calculated in the smallest fractions of a second. Taking into account the fact that this event itself is removed from us for billions of years, it turns out that the relative influence of each person on this process is very negligible. Nevertheless, strictly speaking, from the point of view of science, this effect is still present. Therefore, your laziness can be scientifically justified by the fact that you strive to delay the moment of the Heat death of the Universe as long as possible.

For the sake of truth, we should note that the Heat death of the Universe is only a hypothesis, only one of several dozen possible scenarios for the development of events and how the end of the Universe will eventually come. Many of the alternative theories of the development of events do not at all suggest that the universe should ever have some kind of sad end. Moreover, the hypothesis of the Heat death of the Universe is far from the most substantiated of all these theories. Well, and most importantly, the very presence of a large number of such theories indicates that, unfortunately, science does not yet know for certain the scenario of the development of the Universe in the future, and perhaps the correct theory on this matter has not even been proposed yet.

At the same time, our Universe is most likely not so simple that it can be described on the basis of the ideal gas model; in particular, its components are attracted by gravitational forces, in contrast to ideal gas molecules, which do not interact in some approximation. Also, there is no certainty that all the energy in the Universe should go exactly into heat. And on account of the fact that our Universe is a closed system, some scientists have recently begun to have doubts.

So let's summarize. In this article, we talked a little about entropy, learned what it characterizes and how it behaves in closed thermodynamic systems. We also got acquainted with one of the hypotheses about what the final state of the Universe will be. And on the basis of this information, we came up with a comic excuse for human laziness, which of course should not be taken too close to one’s heart, you should not use it too often, but you can just make a good joke someday with a very clever look.