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General : Entropy
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 Message 2 of 8 in Discussion 
From: MSN Nickname·Steve·  in response to Message 1Sent: 8/6/2008 2:03 PM
Hi Albert, long time no type!  I hope chemistry has been treating you well.
 
The entropy of a system is the "degree of randomness" or "degree of disorder" it has.  A gas has a higher entropy than a liquid, and a liquid has a higher entropy than a solid.  Some people do look at entropy in terms of energy.  There is a natural tendency for energy to spread out, to become less concentrated in one location.  Entropy can be interpreted as a measure of this tendency.
 
If you have the same number of gas molecules at the same temperature, but in different volumes, then their pressures will be different.  The gas in the larger container will exert a lower pressure, and the gas in the smaller container will exert a higher pressure.  In the larger volume, the gas molecules are more spread out, so they have more "degrees of freedom."  The more spread out the molecules are, the more "random" the system is, and therefore, the higher its entropy is.
 
Steve


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     re: Entropy   MSN NicknameAlbert1145  8/7/2008 1:33 PM