Episode 7: "42"

Transcript:

Hi, kids! Captain Bummer here. Ya know, when I was a kid, I sometimes wondered "what's the point of it all?". We're born, we live for a short while, and then we die--end of story [pout]. Then one day, when I was an adult, I understood: human beings live to make the universe die faster [yikes]. Have you ever noticed that if you don't pick up your room, it gets messier and messier? Or that it takes much longer to make something than it does to break it? Or that you usually work harder to remember something than to forget it? These are all examples of entropy, and it's the most important process in the universe! Why? Because it happens to everything, everywhere. It drives evolution. And it is the reason why you and I exist [dramatic pause].
 
A general way to think about entropy is the tendency for anything to eventually fall apart unless it takes from something else. For instance, you keep yourself from falling apart by taking in specific chemicals from your surroundings. If you don't breath, drink, and eat to get energy or materials, you will quickly die and start to decompose [pout]. Entropy is also a measure. Something that is very sturdy, well organized, and/or adaptable, like a building, smart phone, or person, is considered to have "low entropy". The thing is that the creation and maintenance of low entropy things increases the overall entropy of the system they are a part of [yikes]! It is by using energy and materials that life, and human beings in particular, increase the entropy of our planet, our solar system, and our universe--even the simple, innocent act of cleaning your room [dramatic pause].
 
This is the hamper.
This is the smelly sock you threw into the hamper.
This is the muscle that threw the sock.
This is the bologna that powered the muscle.
This is the cow that was ground into bologna.
This is the grass that fed the cow.
This is the sun that energized the grass.
And this is the big bang that formed the hydrogen,
That collected into the dust cloud,
That collasped into the sun,
That fused to create the high-energy photon,
That split into low-energy photons,
That energized the grass,
That fed the cow,
That was processed into bologna,
That was digested for protein,
That was metabolized into creatine,
That supplied the ATP,
That powered the muscle,
That threw the smelly sock into the hamper
 
Each one of these steps, and several in between, used up energy that can never be used again. And when you add it all up, from big bang to smelly sock, that is a lot of entropy! And while you only played a small part in the end, cleaning your room used up stored energy that might otherwise have lasted for millions of years [pout]! But any lifeform can use energy that it is adapted to. Human beings are extra special because they can invent new things--such as combustion engines, batteries, and power plants--that can use up energy that we are not adapted to. Humans don't just nudge entropy along, they accelerate it at an ever increasing pace!! It is as plain as the nose on your face: WE EXIST TO HELP ENTROPY [dramatic pause]. But that isn't a bummer. Entropy is nature's most fundamental process. What could be more natural and noble than helping the universe do its thing more effectively?
 
No--the bummer is that we are not fulfilling our entropic duty anywhere near our true potential [yikes]. Our planet has a puny amount of stored energy compared to the rest of the universe, and we're doing almost nothing to expand our use of energy and materials beyond it. If we don't focus our use of enery, we won't have enough energy and know-how to leave the planet, and that would be total entropy FAIL. Humanity would have existed for no reason at all [pout]. The problem is that most people use (or conserve) energy for the wrong reasons. To help guide people's use of energy and steer us back in the right direction, I have created Captain Bummer's Unscientific Scale of Entropy (USE). USE is a scale from 1-10 based on how you would use the energy obtained by eating 1 bologna sandwich:
 
1 = Get yourself killed
2 = Go to sleep
3 = Fight over scarce resources
4 = Clean your room
5 = Make more balogna sandwiches
6 = Build something with low entropy
7 = Learn about space, energy, and matter
8 = Run a balogna factory
9 = Rape our planet for energy and matter
10 = Help humanity get into space
 
So you see kids, the more USEful you are, the faster the universe becomes useless--and that's A.O.K. It's our job, our prime directive, our destiny. But every second that we are confined to this planet, we are in great danger of extinction--from a nuclear holocaust, an asteroid, or just plain running out of usable energy. And if we are extinct, then we can't help entropy [big pout]. Instead of trying to get rich, playing games, watching TV, or arguing about religion, we should be figuring out how to expand our energy and matter use across the universe. Only then can we tap into our true potential as the ultimate agents of entropy.
 
My baloney has a first name
It's C-a-p-t-a-i-n
My baloney has a second name
It's B-u-m-m-e-r
I love to watch it every day
And if you ask me why, I'll say
Cause the Captain Bummer has a way
With b-a-l-o-n-e-y
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exergy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay