To resolve this paradox, you need to understand that change is not an island of activity in itself. In all seasons we see babies being born, cities built out of sand, wood and dust. If the state of everything we know is degenerating, even on a cosmic scale, why do we see so much ‘order’ in our everyday life? Come the spring, plants will grow and young leaves sprout out of trees. It is the rise in disorder of all the energy and matter in the universe. So, entropy is not something physical which is added to the universe. The greater the disorder, the greater the entropy. The molecules have turned from an orderly state (solid) into a disorderly state (gas).Īt the end of the nineteenth-century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann showed that entropy is a measure of disorder. This leaves more space in between the molecules and occupies a much larger volume. Turn up the heat and the liquid becomes a gas composed of molecules that fly on a collision course and bounce off each other. As the liquid flows, the atoms too start to get livelier. Molecules let go of the grid and start wobbling over each other. When the temperature rises the solid becomes a liquid. Each molecule fits neatly into the grid and – except for some freely floating electrons – nothing moves. Part three: the way the universe will end Disorder on a molecular scaleīehold the molecules of solid body, a huge wall tightly packed together. Part one: a simple definition Part two: birth of the Second Law What is the effect of this on our everyday lives? To better understand let’s zoom in on the molecular basis of matter. One of the rules about entropy is that it cannot decrease. What is Entropy? Part 3 the way the universe will endĮver wondered why heat never flows from cold to hot? Why we can never create a machine with 100% efficiency or how we know our past but not our future? It all has to do with an elusive concept called entropy.
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