fate
Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius’ circa 160AD advice on fate (and or destiny) (see: quotes); also note for his circa 175AD Medications query: “For any particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature?” (Silence of the Lambs, 1991).
In terminology, destiny, near synonymous to fate, in opposition to chance, refers to the philosophical doctrine according to which there exists something to which a person or thing is destined; a predetermined course of events—often held to be an irresistible power or agency. [1]

Fate
American DNA-structure co-discoverer James Watson said on fate: [6]

“We used to think our fate was in the stars. Now we know, in large measure, our fate is in our genes.”

This point of view is what is known as genetic determinism (see: determinism).

Goethe
The following is German polymath Johann Goethe's view of destiny:

“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.”

(add disucssion)

Thermodynamics
See also: Prediction
The seventh sketch of French physicist Gustave Hirn’s 1868 Philosophical Implications of Thermodynamics discusses destiny; the crude French-to-English translation of abstract of which is as follows: [2]

SKETCH SEVENTH: Thought expresses the whole universe. - The words destiny and destination nation shall not apply to any being, one to the exclusion of another. - Every being and the whole process of beings and carry-sui efore a universal law of development. - The existence of this Act alters the ideas that men are on purpose beings. - Lack of distinction of the three kingdoms. - Analogy and radical distinction between the inanimate universe and the universe animated [see: unbridgeable gap]. - Laws of universal harmony, common; \ all beings. . . . . (151)

In French-born American mathematician, biophysicist, and religious philosopher Pierre Lecomte du Nouy’s 1942 book Human Destiny, he uses a Boltzmann-stylized statistical view of thermodynamics, to argue that the second law does not apply to humanity and that God is synonymous with anti-chance. [3]

In English thermodynamicist Alfred Ubbelohde 1946 Time and Thermodynamics, in his opening chapter “Contributions to the Thermodynamics of Scientific Humanism”, he comments: [4]

“Contributions to the thermodynamics of scientific humanism [concerns] insights on the nature of time, [as in] personal or psychological time, and refers to the unification of the specialized sciences effected by the contributions they make to the proper study of mankind, man’s nature and destiny.”

Heat death
The model of “heat death” argues that the ultimate fate (or destiny) of the universe, according to the second law, is an end state of complete dissipation, zero available energy, and maximal entropy, a temperature of the universe near absolute zero, or something along these lines, where energy will no longer be available to produce work or movement of bodies by force through distance. [5]

References
1. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 2000.
2. Hirn, Gustave. (1868). Philosophical Implications of Thermodynamics (Métaphysique et conséquences philosophiques de la thermodynamique: l'analyse fondamentale de l'univers) (Metaphysics and Philosophical Implications of Thermodynamics: Basic Analysis of the Universe). Paris: Gauthier-Villars.
3. (a) Nouy, Pierre Lecomte du. (1947). Human Destiny. Longmans, Green and Co.
(b) Nouy, Pierre Lecomte du. (1948). L’homme et sa Destine. Paris: Colombe.
4. Ubbelohde, Alfred René. (1947). Time and Thermodynamics (ch. I: Contributions to the Thermodynamics of Scientific Humanism, pgs. 1-10) (signed June 1946). Oxford University Press.
5. Cox, Brian and Cohen, Andrew. (2011). Wonders of the World (pg. #; ch. 4: Destiny, pgs. 200-43). HarperCollins.
6. Ball, Philip. (2011). Unnatural: the Heretical Idea of Making People (pg. 284). Vintage Books.

External links
● Destiny – Wikipedia.

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