Disorder, Enthalpy, and Thermodynamics

3/11/2006





The enthalpy of the universe is constant. Even though energy is constantly leaving and entering, it is doing so in equal parts. This sounds so simple, yet it’s a difficult concept to truly grasp. If we had put a glass dome over Hiroshima before bombing it, we would still have the same amount of “stuff” as we did pre-bombing. Granted, the “stuff” is now obliterated into energy, particles, or just debris, but it’s still there. We can’t get rid of that “stuff.” This is the first law of thermodynamics… and it’s called a law for a reason, folks.

No matter what we do, all that energy is still going to be there. Atomic bombs, bazookas, or a bullet between the eyes will not change the amount of energy present. Those actions may cause a transfer of energy into matter, or change the “direction” of the energy, but we can’t get rid of it. So can we ever really destroy anything?

Though we burn our love letters from the one that broke our heart, and smash the picture frames against the wall, we’re not really getting rid of anything. At the purest level, we are transferring our pain into anger. We’re not burning anything away. In the end, there are no ashes, because nothing ever went up in flames. If we cannot create or destroy, are we ever over what happened? Is our energy just going from pain to anger to remorse to love again, transmitted in full amount? Or is our energy just being divvied up into smaller and smaller pieces?

In my experience, each breakup hurts less and less. Either I am, in the immortal words of Jet, a “cold hard bitch,” or my emotions are getting diluted, divided, and otherwise weakened. The passion of first kisses is waning, and the pain of being left doesn’t seem as harsh. If I can’t create or destroy, then after a few more relationships, I’m going to be, in the even more immortal words of Air Supply, “all out of love.”

No matter how “over” him we are, he’s still there. Always will be. He wasn’t our soulmate. Nor was the one before him… or the one before that. But ask a woman about any one of her past loves and I guarantee she will be able to recall him and their memories with perfect detail. Is it that we don’t have a choice in letting go, or do we just not want to let go? Is our energy- our emotion- left behind, or do we leave it there on purpose?

Maybe it’s wrong to try to define emotion via science, but I feel the need to rationalize romance. In my book, if I can’t define it, then it doesn’t exist. But here is this paradox that I can’t explain. Here is this phenomenon that the laws of physics I’ve believed in cannot justify. But I also believe that emotion is energy, and therefore it must be measurable. We must have some set quantity. We have to reach a point where there’s nothing left to give, nothing left to feel. It’s emotionally maxing out.

However, the universe is supposed to be infinite. Doesn’t that mean that the energy is infinite as well? Perhaps it’s only energy in a closed system that is always equal, always measurable. So it depends if our hearts, our emotions, are a closed system or not. And that is, by and large, something we decide for ourselves when entering a new relationship. Do we check our baggage or do we carry it with us as a constant reminder of our past? Do we allow ourselves to just transfer the love we felt for someone else onto someone new or do we just leave a little love behind? Do we create new emotion after every broken heart, or does new enter just as the old leaves?

It’s futile to try to understand, because emotion can’t be measured. We can’t change it into light and find its nearly infinite speed. We can’t change it into mass and find its kinetic energy. We can’t put a dome over it and blow it up. We just can’t. And maybe it’s better that way. It might be better that we can’t measure the love we’ve lost, gained, or have left behind- depending on which theory we abide by. But of course, the universe thrives on spontaneity, and maybe emotion is one of those spontaneous occurrences that give us the necessary disorder.