origin of order in the universe

[thylacine]

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References:

Robert Wald: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0507094
Roger Penrose also has a section in The Road to Reality, called "the thermodynamic legacy of the big bang" or something like that.

Gambini and Pullin:
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0306095


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Ok I read these. The Penrose chapter is 27.

A summary of one aspect (of Penrose and Wald) FWIW: The big bang started in a LOW entropy state in which matter had a uniform density, temperature, and uniform also in all other macroscopic properties. This trips up a lot of people (including me) because, in the absence of gravity, uniform matter is often in a state of HIGH entropy (e.g. gas in a closed container). But when gravity is brought into it, uniform matter has LOW entropy, while clumped matter, especially black holes, and most especially just one giant black hole, has HIGH entropy. Furthermore, this gravitational contribution to entropy potentially swamps all other contributions, that is, the seemingly high entropy of uniform matter in the big bang is actually virtually infintessimally tiny compared the genuinely extremely HIGH entropy of a NON-uniform distribution of matter in the presence of gravity.

I was also going to say something about how a lot of people (including me) also get tripped up in the connection between entropy and things being simple or complex, as well as various other potential sources of confusion about entropy. But I'm getting baffled so I'll stop.

Anyway, the physicists who know what they're talking about make it clear that the big bang started in a LOW entropy state. So the big question is "WHY?" This was the theme of Metric's original post.