Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

thermodynamics become important. The first law of thermodynamics simply says that you can’t get something for nothing, i.e., there is no free lunch. In other words, the total amount of matter and energy in the universe is constant. But as we saw in Chapter 3 , the second law is the most interesting and, in fact, may eventually determine the fate of an advanced civilization. Simply put, the second law of thermodynamics says that the total amount of entropy (disorder or chaos) always increases. This means that all things must pass; objects must rot, decay, rust, age, or fall apart. (We never see total entropy
decrease.
For example, we never see fried eggs leap from the frying pan and back into the shell. We never see sugar crystals in a cup of coffee suddenly unmix and jump into your spoon. These events are so exceedingly rare that the word “unmix” does not exist in the English—or any other—language.)
    So if civilizations of the future blindly produce energy as they rise to a Type II or III civilization, they will create so much waste heat that their home planet will become uninhabitable. Entropy, in the form of waste heat, chaos, and pollution, will essentially destroy their civilization. Similarly, if they produce information by cutting down entire forests and generating mountains of waste paper, the civilization will be buried in its own information waste.
    So we have to introduce yet another scale to rank civilizations. We have to introduce two new types of civilizations. The first is an “entropy conserving” civilization, one that uses every means at its disposal to control excess waste and heat. As its energy needs continue to grow exponentially, it realizes that its energy consumption may change the planetary environment, making life impossible. The total disorder or entropy produced by an advanced civilization will continue to soar; that is unavoidable. But local entropy can decrease on their planet if they use nanotechnology and renewable energy to eliminate waste and inefficiency.
    The second civilization, an “entropy wasteful” civilization, continues to expand its energy consumption without limit. Eventually, if the home planet becomes uninhabitable, the civilization might try to flee its excessesby expanding to other planets. But the cost of creating colonies in outer space will limit its ability to expand. If its entropy grows faster than its ability to expand to other planets, then it will face disaster.
    FROM MASTERS OF NATURE TO CONSERVATORS OF NATURE
    As we mentioned earlier, in ancient times we were passive observers of the dance of nature, gazing in wonder at all the mysteries around us. Today, we are like choreographers of nature, able to tweak the forces of nature here and there. And by 2100, we will become masters of nature, able to move objects with our minds, controlling life and death, and reaching for the stars.
    But if we become masters of nature, we will also have to become conservators of nature. If we let entropy increase without limit, we will inevitably perish by the laws of thermodynamics. A Type II civilization, by definition, consumes as much energy as a star, and hence the surface temperature of the planet will be scorching hot if entropy is allowed to grow unabated. But there are ways to control entropy growth.
    For example, when we visit a museum and see the huge steam engines of the nineteenth century, with their enormous boilers and carloads of black coal, we see how inefficient they were, wasting energy and generating enormous amounts of heat and pollution. If we compare them to a silent, sleek electric train, we see how much more efficiently we use energy today. The need for gigantic coal-burning power plants, belching huge amounts of waste heat and pollution into the air, can be vastly reduced if people’s appliances are energy efficient via renewable energy and miniaturization. Nanotechnology gives us the opportunity to reduce waste heat even further as machines are miniaturized to the atomic scale.
    Also, if room temperature superconductors are found in this century, it means a complete overhaul of our energy requirements. Waste heat, in the form of friction, will be greatly reduced, increasing the efficiency of our machines. As we mentioned, the majority of our energy consumption, especially transportation, goes into overcoming friction. That is why we put gasoline into our gas tanks, even though it would take almost no energy to move from California to