[TheForge] Re: TheForge digest, Vol 4 #579 - 8 msgs

[Thomas A. Troszak]

> From: "R.C.Mundt" <mundt@3rivers.net>
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Tidying up welding leads
> Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 06:31:55 -0600
> 
> I haven't tried it but I  firmly believe if you strung out  your welding
> cables, air hoses etc. neatly across the shop floor friday night, on Monday
> morning they would be tangled.  It must be gremlins or pixies or somthing
> like that.

Dear Randy,
I believe that you are correct about the outcome of you proposed experiment,
but I believe the cause is not gremlins, but a little known (and poorly
understood) force of nature that I refer to as "disentropy".

The ordinary laws of entropy state that all ordered systems naturally
degrade to a lower energy state, or disorder, and this is easily seen all
around us. 

Everyone knows that some effort or energy is required to place a complex
knot into a simple straight piece of cable or hose, yet straight cables,
hoses and ropes still become knotted on a regular basis, even without any
known input of energy, as you have so astutely surmised.

This energy (shown as eK or the "energy of knotting") must come from some
hitherto unrealized source, hence my theory of "disentropy" wherein simple
systems such as a perfectly straight welding cable become infinitely complex
all on their own as soon as you turn your back.

Or... maybe it's just gremlins.

Whaddya think?  :)

Tom Troszak