# Do laws of thermodynamics have a place in Theory of Everything? [closed]

I am having a difficulty understanding why second law of thermodynamics is still a valid universally accepted concept. I understand it works on paper for describing isolated heat systems. However, I do not understand how can it hold place as a valid concept on our path towards a theory of everything. I would like to generate a discussion around some ideas I have that brought me to this conclusion. Maybe there is someone out there who's also thinking about this. Maybe you've got time to point out errors in my logic or suggest reading.

Physicists assume matter and energy is conserved and also tell us "entropy increases!". According to information theory, entropy is related to information. The relationship is "when entropy increases information decreases". (Very short summary)

Now if entropy increases then at some point in the past there was less entropy. So if you go all the way back to Big Bang entropy was at minimum and the amount of information was at maximum. Well, there seems to be something contradictory here! In the present day picture, information is more abundant than ever, we have galaxies, particles, planets, life and all the other stuff, and at Big Bang or slightly after we just had some radiation.

From this, I can't understand why people state that entropy is increasing. Any useful insight?

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## closed as not constructive by David Z♦Nov 12 '12 at 19:16

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@seaworthy: there's only so far that a qualitative description will take you. The formal definition of entropy is $S = k \ln \Omega$, where $\Omega$ is the number of indistinguishble descriptions a state will have. If every particle is in an identical state, you only have one description, and $S=0$. If every particle but one is in its ground state, then you have $S = k \ln N$. At higher energies you have to do combinatorics and the factors grow very quickly. –  Jerry Schirmer Nov 7 '12 at 6:54