Casa Rosales

Casa Rosales

Thursday 10 May 2012

Entropy - or why I can't get organised

As a student in the late '70s and early '80s, I lived in a shared house in Ashford, Middlesex. It was always called  'Ashford, Middlesex' to distinguish it from the more important 'Ashford, Kent' even though since 1965, (when Middlesex as a council disappeared with the creation of Greater London) it was 'moved' to Surrey - no one ever said (or says) 'Ashford, Surrey'. Despite its Twickenham postcode, all letters I received arrived with Middlesex in the address and I suspect this is still the case.

I got a lot of letters then, some of which are so precious to me that despite several moves of house, county and country, I still have with me.


Note that not one has the postcode and not one says 'Ashford, Surrey' but all which clearly reached me from their various starting points.
A rather nice example of mixed-up-ness - more of which in a moment.

It was here, in Ashford, (not Kent, but Middlesex or Surrey), most appropriately, that I was first introduced to entropy. I took to the concept like a duck to water and have been seeing it in action ever since. It helps me to understand why, however hard I try, some things always seem to go wrong. I lived in a house shared with five men, one of whom was my boyfriend at the time - and he and I were the only students. The others were an incredible mix - a real odd bunch - who found themselves together by pure chance rather than choice as the house was their first meeting place.

The phrase 'camp as a row of tents' was probably invented to describe Andrew, one of the lodgers. He and I became absolutely best friends within a short space of time and stayed so over many years. He had a degree from Cambridge in Mathematics, worked at an important computing job at British Airways and also played the piano rather well. He is without doubt one of the most intelligent, interesting and amusing people I have ever met. He and two of the other lodgers, Bill and Richard, were very competitive chess players and many an evening was spent in silence apart from the slap of a hand on the clock that timed their moves. These three men were highly qualified scientists and mathematicians - all three very eccentric in their own ways. The fourth lodger was an attractive, lanky guy with a taste for leggy blondes and a strange, obsessive interest in rank and pinion railways.

It was Andrew that explained entropy to me. With hindsight, I'm sure he was having a gentle dig at my lack of tidiness and general disorganisation but it was so gentle that I didn't pick up on it then. He used a phenomenon of the time, the Rubik's cube, to explain it to me, (though you may, of course, be more aware of entropy as the Second Law of Thermodynamics). Richard had stayed up very late one night doing the cube and had proudly left it for all to see on top of the television when we came down in the morning. To my shame, I picked it up and twiddled it a bit - meaning to nonchalantly pick it up and put it right again when the next person came into the room. And then got into a panic when I couldn't redo it and that it got worse at every turn. Andrew came in and found my distress very amusing. He kindly explained that once something reaches a stage of complete organisation, it could only ever disintegrate or become disorganised - this was entropy. He wrote a big note and put the cube and note back on top of the television saying 'Entropy Happens'. What a shame he didn't copyright the phrase!

That phrase was used over and over during my time in that house - usually as an excuse for leaving my washing up in the sink or other undone domestic chores. I've continued to use it to this day to excuse my children's mess or to try and make them feel better when things haven't gone right and the glue has stuck to the wrong side; or the scissors inexplicably cut off the feet/sword/head or whatever of their picture, instead of following the outline; or when they have started writing in a brand new notebook, only to find they had the book upside down. Anything, in fact, where perfection or order was the goal but the result was mixed-up-ness.

'Mixed-up-ness' is a real word - a lovely entropic sort of word - coined by J. Willard Gibbs in 1903. Shame it was for something unnecessarily complex and scientific. However useful entropy may be as a means or measure for scientists to explain certain phenomena, I think it is so applicable to those things in our daily life that seem to go wrong or awry without any clear reason. Like socks - how is it that despite drumming it into my children to put both socks into the washing basket at the end of the day, I always end up with a selection of odd ones when I've done the washing? Like pens and pencils - we buy hundreds of the darn things, but the moment I need to write down a message following a phone call, I can never locate anything to write with. Like despite constantly picking up toys, papers and small items and putting them away or in their proper place, they will inevitably find their way into a messy heap on the table, sofa or floor? Like when I have a really good clean up, the mess will have gone somewhere else when I turn around? Like in trying to be organised and always having things like pegs, scissors, sellotape and envelopes in a single, accessible place, I end up with nine rolls of sellotape in different places, no scissors, the wrong sized envelopes and never enough pegs?


Entropy is the natural tendency of the organised to move towards the disorganised. It leads to mixed-up-ness.  
Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)







24 comments:

  1. Hello Annie:
    Well, we take your word for it about entropy!!! And, it seems to us that the perfect combination in life is to find two people at either ends of the entropy scale if there is such a thing. In that way, surely as some things are becoming disorganised, forces are moving in the other direction to rearrange them again. In this way, surely total harmony, eternal tidiness and complete cleanliness can rule...well, that is our theory!!!

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    1. Ah Jane and Lance - unfortunately not quite so straightforward. What you might achieve by this (quite frankly) unthinkable combination is a never-ending circle of pick up, drop, pick up, drop and so on. As long as this is an arrangement between consenting adults, I suppose it might JUST work....
      Axx

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  2. Excellent....all is now explained...further logical and scientific explanations for all my mixed up ness is of course, that what I thought was in drawer in the kitchen....is, but its is in the kitchen in Caunes, or if that is where I think it might be...it is, of course, in Hebden Bridge. This is a great post Annie, and I would love to hear more about this fascinating group of Ashford, Middx. residents. J.

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    1. Hi Janice, the post got cut drastically as I started talking about the Ashford, Mddx. mob and couldn't stop - my two years in that house could possibly fill a book, not just a blog post...but this was about entropy and not my tendency to go on and on. (There's probably a scientific explanation for that as well.)
      Gosh, I do sympathise with your predicament. You will have to either duplicate everything or take the opportunity to live a French life and a Yorkshire life and have different things for each. We still have around 60 boxes of our life in a barn in Leon - I have no longer any idea what can possibly be in them and whatever it is, I have learned to live without.
      Axxx

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  3. I had no idea that Ashford had ever moved to Surrey and consequently have continued to distinguish it from the other Ashford by placing it squarely in Middlesex.
    As for the other Ashford, having endured far too many mandatory family gatherings at the house of an Aunt & Uncle who lived there during the '70s I can assure you that there was nothing "important" about it at all! In fact it resembled a wasteland doted with building sites where I suspect there had once been trees and fields - 'New Town' hell!

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  4. Oh, and entropy is currently residing, in all it's glory, in the corner of the room to my left.

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    1. Ashford, Middlesex was actually a lovely village at the time - I enjoyed living there very much. I've never been to Ashford, Kent but it was, I believe, a much bigger place and more well known, hence the need to add (albeit inaccurate) further geographical reference!
      And that corner will start to spread if you just leave it - that's entropy!
      Ax

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  5. That explains a lot. Does entropy apply to relationships. There is one person in my life who my relationship with seems to just turn into a disaster zone everytime we try getting it on track....it used to be so right! We organised ourselves and our feelings and our embraced our differences ( he is a texan man, I am that weird breed - an English girl) and managed perfection for a while there, but to my complete amazement as I never have this problem with anyone else it seems entropy rules when we try getting our once beautiful friendship back on track. Maybe I have to accept its just entropy - there is no explanation for it, it just goes awry and will never happen.

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    1. Yes, Sophie, I think entropy can apply to relationships but usually only if they are not 'worked at'. In this case, there may be some other scientific explanation. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what this is but I will investigate! Watch this space. Axxx

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    2. I'm watching intently! Sx

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  6. Interesting Annie. When it comes to housework, I tend to think of poor SISYPHUS. After all, having got the job done I soon find myself back at the beginning again.

    Anna

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    1. Thanks Anna - I had to look Sisyphus up as I'm not hot on Greek Mythology. I was surprised to find he was who he was because I know that myth well but thought it was someone whose name started with a P - can't find anything to match the name in my mind's eye though.
      Yes, I know that feeling but it is more depressing than blaming entropy!
      Axxx

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  7. Not being scientifically-minded I had to check the full meaning of entropy, while knowing exactly who Sisyphus was and what he was doing. :-) A smashing post, Annie, and you really brought your former housemates vividly to life. Thank you for introducing me to the expression "camp as a row of tents". I have a friend just like that!

    I'm very like you in a 'perfection disintegrating' way, while DH is considerably more organised. He has even done an inventory of what we have where, though we still manage to forget things or end up with duplicates.! :-)

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    1. I sometimes pale with shame when I think of my work calling - information management - and the state of my own personal papers, kitchen drawers and washing basket! You must have a tidy mind to have been a librarian, Perpetua, but glad to know you don't carry this across to the domestic scene to an obsessive level.. ;-)
      Axxx

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    2. Annie...you were a brilliant information manager....dont ever forget it. J

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    3. Thank you so much for saying this, Janice! It is praise indeed and I am most grateful for it. I do need to say that I think my greatest strength was a wonderful team, who were always willing and able to do as I asked them! (Wish I could get my kids to do the same sometimes.) Axxx

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  8. Ah, entropy! I tend to think of it as an antonym of equilibrium. Put like that equilibrium sounds the preferable state. But how boring life would be if nothing ever changed!

    Great post Annie :D

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    1. I aspire to equilibrium!! But I have to admit, my life is not boring. Axxx

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  9. Oh just lovely Annie and explains why the toast always falls butter side down. Exccellent.
    Celia x

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  10. Thanks Celia - it is a wonderful excuse for so much isn't it! Axxx

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  11. I couldn't be tidy if my life depended on it..........

    Loved the saying "camp as a row of tents" - had not come across it before.

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    1. I'm so glad my life doesn't depend on it too, MpM! The saying is not of my making - but it fitted my friend absolutely! Axxx

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  12. Hi Annie,

    Are you sure you aren't me living under an assumed name and identity? I knew we had something in common other than blogging!

    Great post.

    Gaynor

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    1. Did you live in a bizarre, shared house in Ashford, Middx???? Or are you a hopeless domestic disaster at times? OR do you like posh, pseudo-intellectual reasons for not having matching socks after you've done the washing!? I'm so glad I'm not alone. Axxxx

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