Local Order out of Entropic Disorder in H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine
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Previous criticism has often explored H. G. Wells’s entropic vision in The Time Machine (1895), highlighting how the concept of entropy from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, first formulated in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced Wells’s representation of future humanity in his novella. However, there is room for further development in this critical discussion since Belgian physical chemist Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003) complicated the traditional understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. While the nineteenth-century interpretation of the Second Law suggests that entropy would result in maximum disorder, or an equilibrium state, Prigogine’s theory suggests the potential of order arising from disorder in far-from-equilibrium conditions. This essay draws upon Prigogine’s theory to examine Wells’s conception of human futurity, especially the Morlocks’ struggle to survive. The article concludes that the subterranean species localizes its own order amidst ever-increasing entropic disorder.
Abstract
Previous criticism has often explored H. G. Wells’s entropic vision in The Time Machine (1895), highlighting how the concept of entropy from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, first formulated in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced Wells’s representation of future humanity in his novella. However, there is room for further development in this critical discussion since Belgian physical chemist Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003) complicated the traditional understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. While the nineteenth-century interpretation of the Second Law suggests that entropy would result in maximum disorder, or an equilibrium state, Prigogine’s theory suggests the potential of order arising from disorder in far-from-equilibrium conditions. This essay draws upon Prigogine’s theory to examine Wells’s conception of human futurity, especially the Morlocks’ struggle to survive. The article concludes that the subterranean species localizes its own order amidst ever-increasing entropic disorder.