Feature

What is entropy?

By and 2009-07-01T00:00:00

Boltzmann distribution of the number of particles with energy E at low, medium and high temperatures

What's the best way to introduce to your students this most misunderstood of thermodynamic properties?

Thermodynamics deals with the relation between that small part of the universe in which we are interested - the system - and the rest of the universe - the surroundings. Thermodynamic properties depend on the current state of the system but not on its previous history and are either extensive - their values depend on the amount of substance comprising the system, eg  volume - or intensive - their values are independent of the amount of substance making up the system, eg  temperature and pressure. Entropy is a thermodynamic property, like temperature, pressure and volume but, unlike them, it can not easily be visualised.  

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