"Hey, Houtarou, have you ever heard of entropy?"
It was just another one of those days, the type where the sun seemed to take its sweet time to set and there seemed to be absolutely nothing to do. It was one of those quiet days, too; the girls hadn't arrived at the club yet. Houtarou was sitting in his seat in the right next to the window, just so that he could watch the grass patch outside the window listlessly. Then, of course, there was Satoshi.
Houtarou threw his friend a disinterested glance. "What?"
"Entropy, Houtarou! You know, in physics!"
"I've heard of it before," said Houtarou, a little exasperatedly.
"But you don't remember quite what it is, right?"
Houtarou grunted. Apparently, that was the answer Satoshi required.
He leaned forward towards Houtarou, his eyes twinkling. "It's waste energy that increases over time. You know, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states that in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state."
"And this is relevant, because…?"
"Because one day the universe will suffer Heat Death and there will be no more usable energy in the universe. The universe will become colder and emptier because space becomes too stretched out and there's not enough energy to produce heat. Isn't that a sad thought?"
"We'll all be dead by then anyway." Houtarou yawned. "I don't care."
"Of course, of course, that's not in billions of year's time. That's long after the sun's swallowed the earth. But haven't you ever wondered what life will be like in this universe after life ends on earth?"
"No."
"Physicists predict that it's pretty likely. As the universe gets colder, it's expected that intelligent life will find a way to slow down their metabolisms. They'll live much longer than us too. That means they'll be a completely different life form from us."
Houtarou had nothing to say to that, so he just grunted again. His eyebrows waggling, Satoshi took that as his cue to continue.
"In fact, because even thinking is a metabolic process – you know, it uses up energy and stuff – future life will slow down their thinking process. It might take them up to a thousand years to finish a single thought!"
"That's a long time," said Houtarou. He still had no idea where Satoshi was going with this entire spiel.
"It is, isn't it?" said Satoshi, nodding eagerly. "That's quite an evolutionary shift, all thanks to entropy."
He leaned forward even closer to Houtarou, winking conspiringly.
"In the future of the universe, intelligent life will revolve their entire existence around conserving energy."
His eyebrows just kept on waggling. Houtarou glared at him unenthusiastically.
"I see what you did there," said Houtarou, finally understanding. He really did not look amused.
And Satoshi burst into applause.
"Congratulations, Houtarou! You are the precursor of the next generation of intelligent life in this universe! I bet there are bunch of astrophysicists who would love to study you."
Houtarou rolled his eyes.
