Disorder

Today, disorder.  The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. 

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     Years ago, I amused myself by identifying two kinds of human “Fuzz Factors”: internal and external.  I’ll explain: Imagine four office occupants: Jack, Joan, Jerry, and Jim. 

     Jack’s fuzz factors are both very low.  His desk holds only a pen and the paper he’s working on.  His external fuzz factor is very low.  But he also has no tolerance for disorder: his internal and external Fuzz Factors match.  Jack is happy.

     Joan’s office is also very neat.  But her tolerance for disorder is very high.  Okay, she’s happy, but she wastes a lot of time rearranging her pencils.

     Jerry’s office is a scramble of papers, half-finished tasks, unfiled folders.  But Jerry can navigate all that.  His fuzz factors agree, and he gets a lot done.

 Messy Office (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

    Now Jim’s office is as messy as Jerry’s.  But his internal Fuzz factor is very low.  He can’t function in a mess.  So poor old Jim gets nothing done.

     Few of us are that extreme.  But we each do have our own means for dealing with the fuzz, the disorder, that constantly creeps up. 

Of course that’s a result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  It takes energy to restore order.  Imagine opening a tank of compressed air – letting air blow out into the room.  The entropy of the room and the air has now increased.  It’ll take new energy to refill the tank.  To return to a state of lower entropy.

It takes energy to clean up my desk.  And I’m too tired.  While my Fuzz Factors are pretty average, I must be wary or I’ll become Jim. This plays out on the larger world as well. 

We humans all occupy one huge office.  It is our environment.  And we fancy ourselves to be like Jerry.  We’ve let that office grow increasingly messy.  All the while, we imagine we’re able to function in it.  Have we crossed that line and turned from Jerry into Jim?

Remember that air tank.  Once empty it takes a lot of energy to recharge it.  Well now: I’m an old man, lacking in energy.  Am I to keep messing up our office?  Am I to trust my children to muster the energy needed to set things right?   

So: Back to the matter of entropy: It can always be reduced locally, but somewhere the bill must be paid.  Well, this is where we must turn to the sun.  It constantly burns up, as it illuminates us.  Its entropy steadily increases.  And we can reduce our own disorder at its expense. 

Solar energy in its myriad forms can reduce our own skyrocketing fuzz factor. Perhaps, if we begin now, then our children might finish reducing that one most terrifying of all fuzz factors. 

Solar Energy farm near Portland, OR  (Photo by JHL)

I’m John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work. 

(Theme music)

The term fuzz factor is used in somewhat different contexts.  I shamelessly usurp it for my own use here. 

I won’t labor you with the many references to thermodynamics texts and their treatments of the Second Law of Thermo.  Instead, here are two older Engines episodes on the subject (see their sources):

Another Kind of Perpetual Motion | The Engines of Our Ingenuity

A Thermodynamics Class | The Engines of Our Ingenuity

Wikipedia article about solar energy.

Wikipedia article about the sun. 

This Episode first aired on June 16, 2026.