Understanding Entropy: A Simple Guide

Entropy measures the number of ways a system’s microscopic components can be arranged while still maintaining the same overall behavior. Take, for instance, a cubic meter of gas with its freely moving atoms; it has higher entropy compared to a cubic meter of crystalline solid where atoms are tightly packed. Quite simply, the atoms in the gas can be rearranged in many more ways than those in the solid.

Think of entropy as a way to quantify disorder or randomness in a system. When something is highly ordered, it has low entropy. Conversely, a system with high disorder has high entropy.

The second law of thermodynamics suggests that processes in nature tend to move towards states of higher entropy. This means that over time, systems evolve towards greater disorder.