The Law of Entropy and Dance

Have you ever wondered what distinguishes dance movement from random motion of the human body? To what degree is ordered or organized motion necessary for communication through dance? The Second Law of Thermodynamics deals with order and disorder, probabilities and tendencies, in physical systems. Can analogies drawn from this physical principle contribute something to our understanding of the nature and meaning of dance? The Second Law of Thermodynamics, also known as the Law of Entropy or the Law of Increasing Disorder, applies to physical systems in which a number of different configurations are possible. The law states that spontaneous changes in such a system will tend away from an ordered configuration towards the more probable one of greater disorder. An example of this is the distribution of oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the air in a room. Normally these molecules are distributed evenly throughout the room with about 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen molecules in every region of the room. Since there is an enormously large number of ways in which all of the air molecules can be distributed in this uniform way, such a configuration is very probable. It is also possible, though much less probable, that all the oxygen molecules would congregate in one corner of the room, with the nitrogens elsewhere

Art · Classical mechanics · Dance · Entropy (arrow of time) · Epistemology · Meaning (existential) · Molecule · Motion (physics) · Nitrogen · Physical law · Physics · Political science · Quantum mechanics · Second law of thermodynamics · Statistical physics · Theoretical physics · Thermodynamics · Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics · Experimental and Theoretical Physics Studies · Law · Philosophy

• From Cage to Stage

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