Time keeps on ticking ...

 Clocks release disorder, or entropy, as they tick. A new experiment shows that, for one tiny clock, the more accurate the clock, the more disorder it generates. Jatocreate/Pixabay

Entropy is everywhere thanks to the two laws of thermodynamics and the Arrow of Time as disorder always grows as time passes. Thank Sir Arthur Eddington for the  Arrow of Time bit.

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Today’s most advanced clocks keep time with an incredibly precise rhythm. But a new experiment suggests that clocks’ precision comes at a price: entropy.

Entropy, or disorder, is created each time a clock ticks. Now, scientists have measured the entropy generated by a clock that can be run at varying levels of accuracy. The more accurate the clock’s ticks, the more entropy it emitted, physicists report in a paper accepted to Physical Review X.

“If you want a better clock, you have to pay for it,” says physicist Natalia Ares of the University of Oxford.

That's why There Ain't No Thing as a Free Lunch

TANSTAAFL: a plan for a new economic world order. (Pierre Dos Utt, 1949)

To whit yet again ...

Time and entropy are closely intertwined concepts. Entropy is known as the “arrow of time,” because entropy tends to grow as time passes — the universe seems to consistently move from lower entropy to higher entropy (SN: 7/10/15). This march toward increasing entropy explains why some processes can proceed forward in time but not in reverse: It’s easy to mix cream into coffee but exceedingly difficult to separate it again. Machines also increase disorder as they operate, for example by giving off heat that boosts the entropy of their surroundings. That means even a standard, battery-powered clock produces entropy as it ticks.

Reality bites.