John Kingsmill’s football diary – Round 2

 

Round Two,
The Australian Rule of Entropy

 

“In statistical mechanics, entropy is a measure of the number of ways in which a system may be arranged,
often taken to be a measure of ‘disorder’ (the higher the entropy, the higher the disorder).”

 

 

This year, will the shape of the season only confirm
the Second Rule of Physics, namely that everything
tends towards a higher state of Entropy?

 

Take a pile of sand, Brian Cox says. Pick up a handful
and rearrange it. The shape stays the same. That’s
high entropy. Now take a building. Grab some of

 

its elements and put them back in a different position.
After an earthquake, say. It’s a different building.
A building has low entropy. It’s only Round Two

 

but, already, we have a shape for the season.
There’s high entropy at the head and the foot
of the table. If you take some players out of four

 

or five of the better teams, their shape won’t change.
They’ll still win more than they will lose. And, if you
rearrange the deck chairs for the bottom-crawlers,

 

their shape won’t change either. They’ll still lose.
The ones in the middle, with player dependency,
and low entropic values, create the mystery

 

of the chase and the quality of the dare.

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