“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I’ll go eat worms;
Big ones, little ones, small fat juicy ones,
Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm.
…
I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice,
And throw the skins away!
Nobody knows how fat I grow,
On worms three times a day.”

Don’t let the word thermodynamics scare you. It’s just a title given to a field of study relating to how heat behaves. More or less. It’s governed by four laws, all of which pretty much makes logical sense, even if you don’t understand the math of it. I won’t explain to you all the laws, as only one of them is relevant in this Mad Scientist Moment: The Second Law of Thermodynamics. (Cue dramatic reverb).

You see, I have found the Ultimate Weapon. The hand of Death. The destroyer of worlds. It will be able to destroy anything it touches, even diamond. Nothing is safe, my friends. Nothing. You might as well give up and kill yourselves. But before I reveal my evil discovery, I will explain.

The Second Law

“The change in the entropy of the Universe (denoted by: ?S_universe) is greater than or equal to zero.” Translated into english, it merely means that the Universe either stays the same, or wears down. It never… wears “up”. If you look at anything in this world, you’ll realize that nothing increases in “order” over time. A broken watch doesn’t turn into a fixed watch. That pile of dog poo you just stepped on a while ago won’t go back into a T-bone steak. And that T-bone steak certainly won’t turn into a living, breathing cow.

“But Levi, the dog poo can turn into fertilizer, in which a plant can sprout. Isn’t the plant more ‘orderly’ than the poo?”

Very good question, but there is a very simple explanation: the Sun. The sun introduces energy into the story and allows for the plant to grow. Without the sun, the plant will definitely NOT grow. And what do you think will happen to the sun after millions of years? It’ll turn into a Red Giant and then poof, goodbye. The same will go for the other stars in the universe, as with everything else.

Before you start roll your eyes and start saying that I’m calling just saying that the Ultimate Weapon is the natural wearing-down of things, you are so very wrong. Please, allow me to continue. We are almost there.

The Point

Now, math is unavoidable. Don’t worry, it isn’t complicated at all. It’s simple arithmetic.

?S_system + ?S_surroundings = ?S _total

This is like saying that the change in disorder of the dog poo and the plant seed (that isn’t growing), when added to the change in disorder of the wind, the sun, the people walking around the poo and plant seed, and the rest of the universe, is equal to the change in disorder of the universe. Digest. Next equation.

To make things easier, let’s make the “system” a ball. Since ?S = Q/T (Q = heat energy; T = temperature in Kelvins), we can replace ?S_system with:

Q/T_ball + ?S_surroundings = ?S _total

Suppose we make the Temperature of the ball: zero Kelvins. Recall that any number divided by zero will become infinity. So the ?S of the ball will become infinity. Also recall that any number added to infinity will yield infinity. So, we have the following equation:

INFINITY = ?S_total

Recall that entropy is a measure of the disorderliness of something. The higher the value, the more disorderly. (That is why the ?S of the universe is greater than or equal to zero) Since the operator “?” indicates a change between state 1 and state 2, you can say that:

?S = S₂ – S₁

And if ?S = infinity, that must mean that the “newer” state, S₂ has a value of infinity. State 2 has infinite disorder.

You all can see where this is going, yes?

If anything, anything at all, is cooled to zero Kelvins, it can be made to destroy anything it touches.

Sadly, as of this moment, the only way I can think of that can make anything cool down to zero Kelvins is for the Universe to… end. o_O

To SVA: Guys, when you write a textbook with exercises, it doesn’t matter how brilliant you are if the problems make no grammatical sense. Please, review problem 4.39, and if you can’t find any logical/grammatical error, go back to high school and relearn english.