Entropy

What is Entropy?

A thermodynamic property quantifying how much of a system's energy is no longer available to do useful work, often loosely described as a measure of disorder. Every real, irreversible process generates additional entropy, which is why energy inevitably degrades in quality even though the total amount is always conserved.

The five clues

Engineerdle #39 described Entropy with five clues, revealed one at a time from hardest to most direct. Each clue points at a different property of the concept.

1. 01A measure that quantifies disorder, though 'disorder' undersells it.
2. 02It never decreases for an isolated system, only stays the same or grows.
3. 03A reversible process leaves it unchanged; a real one always creates more.
4. 04It's what makes some processes only run one way in time.
5. 05A thermodynamic property measuring the unavailability of a system's energy to do useful work.

More Thermodynamics concepts

• Triple PointPuzzle #52
• Isentropic ProcessPuzzle #44
• Adiabatic ProcessPuzzle #34
• Latent HeatPuzzle #14
• Specific Heat CapacityPuzzle #9
• First Law of ThermodynamicsPuzzle #4