why my son shouldn't tidy his room....

[cheerypeabrain]

He found this on the internet...

WHY YOU SHOULD NOT CLEAN YOUR ROOM

Situations of greater entropy are statistically favoured. Things that are statistically favoured tend to happen, particularly over time. A disordered room has a greater entropy than an organised one. Thus an ordered room will tend to become disordered over time. The only way to reverse this is by continually putting in energy from an outside system (i.e. by making the effort to clean one's room regularly)

HOWEVER at some point a disordered room will become maximally entropic. At this point, continually failing to clean ones room will not generally result in a more disordered state. Thus no additional input of energy is needed to maintain the state of the room.

Therefore cleaning one's room is futile ; a task for the modern day Sisyphus. It is much more energetically efficient to allow the room to allow the room to stay in it's natural, maximally entropic state towards which will always tend (and to expend the energy on more interesting things)


I'm not convinced....and I'd still like him to tidy up his bedroom.....

[patricklondon]

At this point, continually failing to clean ones room will not generally result in a more disordered state.

Quentin Crisp put it rather more succinctly when he explained why he never dusted: after four years, the dust doesn't get any worse.

(He also said "Never keep up with the Joneses: drag them down to your level")

[Deleted]

Yes, Quentin Crisp immediately popped to mind as well -- didn't he live in the same studio for something like 16 years without ever cleaning it?

[nautiker]

no need for conviction, since if I recall correctly, this is a simplified paraphrase for the 2nd law of thermodynamics - do you really want to mess with fundamental physics?

[mossie]

So that is what they spend all those years at university learning

[Deleted]

You're son is right though, Cheery! What's the point to tidy it up, for it to only get messed up later on? ;D

I admit I was never a very strict parent. Well not at all really, very easy going, they wanted to live in the mess, they were welcome to.