Thermodynamic Dragon

I've always been fond of the second law of thermodynamics:

The second law is concerned with entropy, which is a measure of disorder. The second law says that the entropy of the universe increases. An increase in disorder (overall) is therefore spontaneous. If the volume and energy of a system are constant, then every change to the system increases the entropy. If volume or energy change, then the entropy of the system can actually decrease. However, the entropy of the universe does not decrease. The molecules in one's body exist in great order; this only happens because the entropy of the rest of the universe is increased to a greater amount than the entropy of the body is decreased.

Basically, this law says that the amount of disorder in the universe either stays the same or increases, no matter what action is taken. Even creating something very orderly will just increase the overall entropy. I always though this as a brilliant law, and one that I gladly follow -join the winners!

Much to my annoyance, Australian scientist have discovered that this is not always necessarily true.

However the only way to decrease the entropy in the universe is to put a tiny bead into a water-filled container and fire a laser beam at it. The researchers discovered that in such a tiny system, entropy can sometimes decrease rather than increase.

Luckily the effect was only seen when the researchers looked at the bead's behaviour for a tenth of a second. Any longer and the effect was lost. So there is no danger of order gaining supremacy over disorder anytime soon in a universe near you.