Try as we might, we will never escape the limits imposed by Carnot’s logic. The same is true for Newton’s and Einstein’s and that of many others who have worked to describe the universe as it is and not as they want it to be. In that regard, Carnot haunts us. They all haunt us. As our imaginations run wild on fantastical technologies and fantastical futures, the laws of physics will be there to keep us in check.
The sooner we shed our biases about the future, the sooner we face Carnot’s ghost head on, the smarter and sounder our decisions about the future will be. Read more on Substack.