Could someone define the term entropy?

Question

maybe also heat, brownian motion, temperature, and just the ideas of thermodynamics in general.

Why did Rudolf Clasius choose heat/temperature?

Answer 1

Entropy: means the universe is going toward disorder because most chemical reactions give off heat which can not be reused. The universe also keeps expanding and everything will be so far apart that life will cease to exist. Off course I would not believe this dooms day philosophy. Man can create order , for example terraforming a barren planet.

Answer 2

Entropy is the randomness of the universe and has to do with heat (but that's all I know)

Temperature is the concentration of heat (not amount).  There is more heat in a bathtub full of lukewarm water than a cup full of boiling water.

Thermodynamic: Heat moves from the area of greatest heat to least, never otherwise.  Entropy can never decrease it can only increase of stay the same.

Heat can never be completely converted into other forms of energy.

That's about all I remember.

Answer 3

Thermodynamics (from the Greek θερμη, therme, meaning "heat"and δυναμις, dunamis, meaning "power") is a branch of physics and is used extensively in chemistry. Thermodynamics studies the effects of changes in temperature, pressure, and volume on physical systems at the macroscopic scale by analysing the collective motion of their particles using statistics.Roughly, heat means "energy in transit" and dynamics relates to "movement"; thus, in essence thermodynamics studies the movement of energy and how energy instills movement. Historically, thermodynamics developed out of need to increase the efficiency of early steam engines.



Typical thermodynamic system, showing input from a heat source (boiler) on the left and output to a heat sink (condenser) on the right. Work is extracted, in this case by a series of pistons.The starting point for most thermodynamic considerations are the laws of thermodynamics, which postulate that energy can be exchanged between physical systems as heat or work. They also postulate the existence of a quantity named entropy, which can be defined for any system. In thermodynamics, interactions between large ensembles of objects are studied and categorized. Central to this are the concepts of system and surroundings. A system is composed of particles, whose average motions define its properties, which in turn are related to one another through equations of state. Properties can be combined to express internal energy and thermodynamic potentials, which are useful for determining conditions for equilibrium and spontaneous processes.

With these tools, thermodynamics describes how systems respond to changes in their surroundings. This can be applied to a wide variety of topics in science and engineering, such as engines, phase transitions, chemical reactions, transport phenomena, and even black holes. The results of thermodynamics are essential for other fields of physics and for chemistry, chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, cell biology, biomedical engineering, materials science, and economics to name a few

Answer 4

Entropy is simply a systems energy which is unavailable to do work.  You could think of it like energy-distribution.  If you have a tub of water, and most of the water is cold except for one little spot of hot water, the entropy is low - the energy is not very evenly spread out.  Let it sit for a while and all the water will be evenly lukewarm as the heat spreads out, now the entropy is high.

Answer 5

Hey mom!

Don't teach your kids to be a copycat! Isn't that cheating mom?

Or did you write the wikipedia entry at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynam... ?

If so, be proud out loud and give yourself credit, if not give them the credit they deserve...

OK?!

Yes I gave you the thumbs down. My teacher said it's Playjerism (or something like that)

As to the part of the question still unanswered...

ClaUsius, I believe, introduced the term entropy (not heat) which is from the greek, roughly, "transformation of content". He studied the transfer of heat/energy during phase transitions (among other things). You can see how the choice is definitely linked to this.

His was a pretty cool time as the big realization of which he was a part was that heat is a form of mechanical energy based on movement of "particles".

Here are some good wikipedia links for more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Clau...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_...

and (mentioned above)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynam...