The high-entropy horror: Why time is the cruelest force

Do other countries have graduation albums? Recently, I had dinner with a former classmate whom I hadn’t seen since middle school, and he brought our graduation album. My own copy is long lost, so I saw the pictures for the first time in decades. I was so deeply ashamed of my hairstyle and posing that I instantly wished for death—and for the immediate demise of the classmate who brought the evidence.

I worry that in the future, if graduation albums are stored digitally in the cloud, the ease of sharing will lead to a sharp increase in suicide and murder rates. The flow of time is truly that cruel.

This brings me to the profound concept of time in our industry.

The magic word: Why physicists (and furniture makers) obsess over time

People in the luxury furniture industry seem to love the phrase “timeless design,” and we use it often for our products. To be honest, the word “timeless” is deeply confusing to me because the definition of “time” itself is not settled in physics and philosophy.

Today, I want to discuss timeless design from that high-minded view. Don’t worry, but be careful: I’m absolutely not an expert. I just use complicated concepts to make myself look smarter than I actually am.

In physics, the flow of time is expressed by the change in entropy. This is the magic word that instantly makes you look intelligent. Try replacing “So much time has passed” with, “Entropy has increased significantly.” You might gain respect, or you might just annoy people as a know-it-all, leading to unflattering talk behind your back.

A famous example: Take a set of playing cards ordered from ace to king. If you shuffle them, the entropy of the card set increases. I personally understand it as the degree of un-uniformity, or randomness.

The God’s eye view: Timelessness and low entropy

Some physicists even claim the change in entropy is reversible, suggesting that time doesn’t truly flow (timeless, in a sense). The philosophical explanation is even more intriguing: Some philosophers argue that entropy doesn’t even exist. The randomness of shuffled cards is merely due to the fact that our limited human consciousness cannot perceive the underlying order that exists—an order that can only be seen from God’s perspective.

Based on this logic, we might define timeless-design furniture this way: It is low in entropy, exhibiting a clear, recognizable pattern or rule that customers can easily find.

Unfortunately, this attempt to define design through physics—that timeless design is simply low entropy—doesn’t make much rational sense, even to me. However, it is an interesting exercise. Perhaps timelessness is the design quality that remains low in entropy regardless of the chaotic passing of the years.

I just hope that when you look at our products, you can somehow feel that low-entropy vibe.

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