My brain can’t understand this at all. In an isolated system with cold molecules on one side and hot molecules on the other, I understand how the heat of this system balances with time, but it’s confusing to me that a system with a more evenly distributed temperature has increased randomness when it appears that there’s more order.
This feels like it should be simple, but my brain simply isn’t getting it, no matter how many analogies or examples I read. I’ve got to be missing something very simple, and that’s why it’s so frustrating that I don’t understand it. This is seriously stressing me out.
In: Physics
Think of it this way. What is a more random situation:
A box with 50 bouncy balls, where 25 are bouncing around but the other 25 are just kinda rolling around the bottom. Or a box where all 50 balls are bouncing around (not with the same intensity as the 25 from the first box, but still bouncing around)
The one where more balls are bouncing around is more random, right?
Also, consider this. You think that the evenly heated box is more orderly because it’s uniform right, it is just one big group? But it isn’t, it’s actually many many many small molecules in reality. When half the molecules are at cold temperates and not moving around as much, those ones are way easier to keep track of than when they are moving around a lot.
It’s the difference between counting a crowd of people when they are all stood still for you, vs when everyone is walking around and mixing together.
I hope those analogies help you
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