Concept
Entropy
Overview
Entropy is a thermodynamic state variable that quantifies the probabilistic distribution of accessible microstates in a system. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics (where it was first recognized), to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and the principles of information theory. It has far-ranging applications in chemistry and physics, in biological systems and their relation to life, in cosmology, economics, and information systems including the transmission of information in telecommunication.
Entropy is central to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system left to spontaneous evolution cannot decrease with time. As a result, isolated systems evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium, where the entropy is highest. "High" entropy means that energy is more disordered or dispersed, while "low" entropy means that energy is more ordered or concentrated. A consequence of the second law of thermodynamics is that certain processes are irreversible.
The thermodynamic concept was referred to by Scottish scientist and engineer William Rankine in 1850 with the names thermodynamic function and heat-potential. In 1865, German physicist Rudolf Clausius, one of the leading founders of the field of thermodynamics, defined it as the quotient of an infinitesimal amount of heat to the instantaneous temperature. He initially described it as transformation-content, in German Verwandlungsinhalt, and later coined the term entropy from a Greek word for transformation.
Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann explained entropy as the measure of the number of possible microscopic arrangements or states of individual atoms and molecules of a system that comply with the macroscopic condition of the system. He thereby introduced the concept of statistical disorder and probability distributions into a new field of thermodynamics, called statistical mechanics, and found the link between the microscopic interactions, which fluctuate about an average configuration, to the macroscopically observable behaviour, in the form of a simple logarithmic law, with a proportionality constant, the Boltzmann constant, which has become one of the defining universal constants for the modern International System of Units.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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in the misleading errors of language (and the fundamental fallacies of reason which have become petrified therein), which understands, and understands wrongly, all working as conditioned by a worker, by a "subject." And just exactly as the people separate the lightning from its flash, and interpret the latter as a thing done, as the working of a subject which is called lightning, so also does the popular morality…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
States what Entropy is; the author is tied to Entropy in the knowledge graph.
The continual transitions that occur, forbid our speaking of the "individual," etc.; the "number" of beings itself fluctuates. We should know nothing of time or of movement, if, in a rough way, we did not believe we saw things "standing still" behind or in front of things moving. We should also know just as little about cause and effect, and without the erroneous idea of "empty space" we should never have arrived at…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Will to Power
States what Entropy is; the author is tied to Entropy in the knowledge graph.
It is then assumed that _p_ of our parameters vary independently, so that we only have _n_ - _p_ relations, generally linear, between our _n_ parameters and their derivatives. To simplify the enunciation, suppose that the sum of the work of the external forces is null, as well as that of the quantities of heat given off to the outside. Then the signification of our principle will be: _There is a combination of these…
Henri Poincaré, The Foundations of Science
States what Entropy is.
Philosophers who discussed Entropy
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Second law of thermodynamics
- Isaac Newton
- John von Neumann
- Internet Archive
- Ecological economics
- Function (mathematics)
- Cosmology
- Mass
- Stephen Hawking
- Claude Lévi-Strauss
- Heat
- Probability
- Physics
- Pessimism
- Quantum mechanics
- Roger Penrose
- Statistical mechanics
- James Clerk Maxwell
- Arrow of time
- Thermodynamics
- Bit
- Elsevier
- Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Cosmology.