We choose to go to the moon...

What I'd love is a book club for non-physicists led by a physicist.

scot_ty - Have you started The Black Hole War yet? I'm about half way through and I'd love to discuss it with you. I have so many general questions as I read and sometimes I need help tying things together.

It took me a while to connect that gravitational time dilations at the horizon of a black hole are explained by the equivalence principle. I would have loved to have had someone to bounce my thoughts around with. Now I'm struggling with entropy.

I mean, even at a high level, I'm having some problems. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of a system tends to increase. What if you freeze water in a bathtub to absolute zero? We know at absolute zero, the entropy of that system is at or near zero but it was much higher when it started. Entropy decreased. Does the 2nd law have to exist in a closed system or, somewhat related, does the system in the case include the mechanism for freezing the water which has energy of its own? I DON'T KNOW.

I'm also confused about the mathematical formula around bits and entropy calculation. I'm not 100% sure it matters but the bit about bits (hahaha) is confusing me.

If you haven't started yet, I should probably mention that it's a great book and most of it is entirely digestible if you're familiar with the basics of relativity and quantum mechanics (and there is an overview chapter on both). But there are definitely concepts I'd digest more easily if I had someone to talk to about them.

ETA: If anyone else wants to help me get a grip on entropy, HAVE AT IT.

ETA 2: 11 killed after avalanche on Pakistan's K2. How terrible. I love reading about mountain climbing but I have zero aspiration to actually try it.