Eli5 Can someone explain Entropy? Quelqu’un peut expliquer l’entropie?
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This is an oversimplified example, but I hope it helps:
Let’s say a fluid/gas in a container is cold, all the molecules will be at the bottom of the container (because it’s colder and denser than the air around). This means, the number of possible configuration (a configuration is basically a specific description of where each and every particle and momentum) fitting this scenario is relatively low. So that’s a relatively low entropy.
If you heat it up and the fluid/gas starts to have the density as the air, the molecules can be anywhere in the container, so there are many more possibile configurations compared to the previous scenario, therefore higher entropy.
If you keep heat it up and the fluid/gaz is now much less dense than air. All the molecules will be concentrated at the top of the container. So the number of configurations is much closer to the first scenario and so is the entropy.
Entropy is basically a measure of how many different configurations can describe a specific scenario.
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