Weird Science (review of Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World, by Jeremy Rifkin)

Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World, by Jeremy Rifkin (Bantam, 355 pp., $9.95)

Jeremy Rifkin’s Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World (first published in 1980 but now reissued in an updated and expanded edition) dismisses humanity’s progress over the past three centuries as illusion because it rests on a false world view based on Newtonian mechanics. Instead, Rifkin offers an alternative world view, based on a sometimes literal but often metaphorical interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as embodied in the concept of entropy. Originally, ‘ ‘ entropy” was a specific term used to describe the part of a closed system’s thermal energy that is not available for conversion into mechanical work. In recent years, the word has been corrupted by popular use, and Rifkin seems intent on continuing the trend.

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Alex Lane

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Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World, by Jeremy Rifkin (Bantam, 355 pp., $9.95)

Jeremy Rifkin’s Entropy: Into the Greenhouse World (first published in 1980 but now reissued in an updated and expanded edition) dismisses humanity’s progress over the past three centuries as illusion because it rests on a false world view based on Newtonian mechanics. Instead, Rifkin offers an alternative world view, based on a sometimes literal but often metaphorical interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as embodied in the concept of entropy. Originally, ‘ ‘ entropy” was a specific term used to describe the part of a closed system’s thermal energy that is not available for conversion into mechanical work. In recent years, the word has been corrupted by popular use, and Rifkin seems intent on continuing the trend.