Entropy is a measure of molecular disorder or randomness of a system, and the second

law states that entropy can be created but it cannot be destroyed.

Entropy can be viewed as a measure of molecular disorder, or molecular randomness. As

a system becomes more disordered, the positions of the molecules become less

predictable and the entropy increases.

Thermodynamic entropy is a measure of how organized or disorganized energy is present

in a system of atoms or molecules. It is measured in joules of energy per
unit kelvin. Entropy is an important part of the third law of thermodynamics.
Imagine that a group of molecules has ten units of energy. If the energy in those molecules is
perfectly organized, then the molecules can do ten units of work. However, if the energy became
less organized (so, the entropy increased), the molecules might only be able to do six units of
work, even though they still have ten units of energy in them.

When total entropy is reached, there is no more energy to spend. A good example of this is
a cup of hot tea. The tea has a lot of energy compared to the room the tea is in. Over time the
heat in the tea will spread into the room. The tea will become colder. This is because the energy
(heat) in the tea moves to the surrounding area. Once the tea became cold, there is no more heat
that can be spread. The tea has reached total entropy.
There are two types of these "rooms": An open system and a closed system. An open system
means that energy (like heat) can freely flow in and out of the room. A closed system means that
the room is closed off from the outside; no energy can go in or out.
In the case of the tea, the room was a closed system; no energy could enter it. But we can also
make it an open system by placing a heater into the room. If we turn on the heater, we can use
the heat from it to reheat the cup of tea. New energy has been brought into the room. The entropy
has thus decreased. The heat that went from the heater into the tea can then move into the room
again until total entropy has been reached. This is what the second law of thermodynamics is
about.
A real life example of an open system is the Earth. It gets a lot of energy from the Sun every
day. This allows plants to grow and water to stay liquid. If we took away the Sun, plants would
die and water would freeze because the surface of our planet would be too cold.
Energy and Entropy
Entropy is a measure of the random activity in a system. The
entropy of a system depends on your observations at one
moment. How the system gets to that point doesn't matter at
all. If it took a billion years and a million different reactions
doesn't matter. Here and now is all that matters in entropy
measurements.

When we say random, we mean energy that can't be used for

any work. It's wild and untamed. Scientists use the
formula (delta)S = (delta)Q /(delta)T. "S" is the entropy
value, "Q" is the measure of heat, and "T" is the temperature
of the system measured in Kelvin degrees. When we use the
symbol delta, it stands for the change. Delta T would be the
change in temperature (the original temperature subtracted
from the final).

Affecting Entropy
Several factors affect the amount of entropy in a system. If you
increase temperature, you increase entropy.

(1) More energy put into a system excites the molecules and
the amount of random activity.

(2) As a gas expands in a system, entropy increases. This one

is also easy to visualize. If an atom has more space to bounce
around, it will bounce more. Gases and plasmas have large
amounts of entropy when compared to liquids and solids.

(3) When a solid becomes a liquid, its entropy increases.

(4) When a liquid becomes a gas, its entropy increases. We

just talked about this idea. If you give atoms more room to
move around, they will move. You can also think about it in
terms of energy put into a system. If you add energy to a solid,
it can become a liquid. Liquids have more energy and entropy
than solids.

(5) Any chemical reaction that increases the number of gas

molecules also increases entropy. A chemical reaction that
increases the number of gas molecules would be a reaction that
pours energy into a system. More energy gives you greater
entropy and randomness of the atoms.

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