#Entropy synonym full#

This was a greatĪchievement of nineteenth-century physics, led by Ludwig Boltzmann, who wrote down the only equation that connects entropy with any concept that might be called 'disorder'.

#Entropy synonym full#

Statistical mechanics explains thermodynamics, which is a science based on observed phenomena of macroscopic entities, such as a cylinder full of gas, in terms of more basic physics of microscopic entities, such as the collection of molecules that comprises the gas. The only reason that that identification has been made stems from the different field of study called 'statistical mechanics'. It is simply irrelevant and out of place except as an interesting aside. It is not an axiom or first principle, it is not derived from any other basic principles, and nowhere is it required or even used at all to do any of the science to which thermodynamics applies. But what of entropy and disorder? Where does that identification fit into the structure of thermodynamics? Writers of pop science books like to make the same kind of relation, and will ask their readers to consider things like the state of their rooms-tidy or messy-and compare the (supposed) decrease in orderliness of the room over time to the 'tendency of entropy to increase'. At the very most, there may be a paragraph or two somewhere in that thick book alluding to some kind of relation between entropy and 'disorder'. Entropy and the second law are powerful tools that allow one to calculate the properties of systems at equilibrium. You will find discussions about ideal gases, heat engines, changes of state, equilibrium, chemical reactions, and the energy density and pressure of radiation. That's the science that talks about order and disorder, isn't it? There just has to be some reason why 'order cannot come from disorder', and the reason must be in thermodynamics.

It can be explained patiently (or less than patiently, after the 1000th iteration or so) that entropy only strictly increases in an isolated system that there are no completely isolated systems in nature, save maybe the universe as a whole and that the whole idea of isolated systems is really an abstraction for pedagogical purposes but still the creationist won't let go.

Of course, this represents a serious misunderstanding of what thermodynamics actually states. 'Entropy' is frequently used as a synonym for 'disorder'. Is impossible because this would require an increase in order, whereas the second law of thermodynamics states that 'in any natural process the amount of disorder increases', or some similar claim. T is often asserted by creationists that the evolution of life Gordon Davisson explains why the macroscopic arrangement of an object'sĪtoms and molecules is for all practical purposes irrelevant when