What is Entropy?

WHAT IS ENTROPY?

“Entropy is disorder.”
You’ve learned this from popular culture, you’ve learned this in your physical science, chemistry, or biology class.
But what does that *mean*? We have an intuitive sense for what “disorder” is, but how do you really define it rigorously for a scientific concept?

There are two ways to approach it; one is as a term in thermodynamic equations, the other is as a fundamental concept from statistical mechanics (on which thermodynamics is based).

In this talk, I will try to convey the true fundamental definition of entropy at a level that anybody can understand. We will roll dice, we will talk about how physical systems can be more “ordered” or “disordered” in a rigorous sense, and hopefully we will shed some light on what entropy really is.

Podcast Interview with Rob

— Rob Knop 

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