Posted: Feb 01, 2019 9:44 am
I'm hoping for some help from one or more of the physicists here.
Some of you know that I'm doing a course on astrophysics with Oxford ContEd. I don't have a maths or physics background, but the course is designed to be accessible to a wide range of people, and so it is. Mostly.
However, I've come across something which I don't understand and with which our tutor's answer hasn't really helped me. Looking at results from Hubble, it seems that the most distant, i.e. oldest galaxies 'look strange – smaller, irregular, lacking clearly defined shapes.'
Nearer, i.e. more recent galactic views show more ordered galaxies; as that site explains '[c]loser in, we see numerous galaxy interactions and collisions as galaxies come together and merge, growing in the process. And nearer still, we see versions of the large, stately galaxies we know today. '
Help! How does this square with the entropy of the universe increasing?
Some of you know that I'm doing a course on astrophysics with Oxford ContEd. I don't have a maths or physics background, but the course is designed to be accessible to a wide range of people, and so it is. Mostly.
However, I've come across something which I don't understand and with which our tutor's answer hasn't really helped me. Looking at results from Hubble, it seems that the most distant, i.e. oldest galaxies 'look strange – smaller, irregular, lacking clearly defined shapes.'
Nearer, i.e. more recent galactic views show more ordered galaxies; as that site explains '[c]loser in, we see numerous galaxy interactions and collisions as galaxies come together and merge, growing in the process. And nearer still, we see versions of the large, stately galaxies we know today. '
Help! How does this square with the entropy of the universe increasing?