CHRISTMAS AND THE DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE?

1.

When you pull the Christmas tree lights from the box of decorations this year, don’t be surprised if they’re in a hopeless tangle. It’s actually a law of the Universe.

2.

A 2007 study at the University of Chicago found that strings longer than 46cm long will spontaneously tie themselves into knots if they are shaken randomly in a box.

3.

This is a consequence of entropy, which is a measure of the disorder of a system. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of the Universe is always increasing – in other words, things are more likely to tangle than disentangle.

4.

Once the Universe reaches maximum entropy (in roughly 10106 years) no chemical or physical interactions will be possible. This ‘heat death’ is one of the possible ultimate fates of the Universe.