An example of increasing entropy is the

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).

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.

This page provides a simple, non-mathematical introduction to entropy suitable for students meeting the topic for the first time.

What is entropy?

At this level, in the past, we have usually just described entropy as a measure of the amount of disorder in a system. A very regular, highly ordered system (diamond, for example) will have a very low entropy. A very disordered system (a mixture of gases at a high temperature, for example) will have a high entropy.

We now expand on this a bit, but luckily not too much! Let's look at this with a couple of thought experiments . . .

Suppose you held a stack of ten coins between your finger and thumb. That's a fairly ordered state for them to be in. And then you dropped them on the floor. Every time you did this, you would get a different random pattern of coins on the floor - arranged just by chance. That is now a disordered system.

Now, it is just imaginable that when you dropped them, by chance they would fall into a neat stack of coins like the one you started with, but the probability of that happening, compared to all the other ways that the coins might fall, is so very, very tiny that you would be totally amazed if it happened.

Technically, entropy applies to disorder in energy terms - not just to disordered arrangements in space. But we often just quickly look at how disordered a system is in space in order to make a judgement about its entropy. A system which is more disordered in space will tend to have more disorder in the way the energy is arranged as well.

Suppose you managed to arrange some gaseous molecules in a container so that they were all exactly evenly spaced and so that they all had exactly the same energy - a fairly ordered state. And then you let them go and do what molecules do - move around, and bump into each other and the walls of the container.

Each collision between two molecules will cause them to change direction, and it will probably speed up one of them, and slow down the other. After a very short time, their arrangement in space will be chaotic, and so will the way energy is shared between them. The faster moving particles have more energy; the slower ones less. The entropy has increased in terms of the more random distribution of the energy.

In essence . . . "a system becomes more stable when its energy is spread out in a more disordered state".

That is really all you need to know. If you look in textbooks or on the web, you will find explanations of increasing difficulty - some very scary indeed! Don't waste time on these at this level.

Entropy changes during physical changes

Changes of state

This includes solid to liquid, liquid to gas and solid to aqueous solution.

Entropy is given the symbol S, and standard entropy (measured at 298 K and a pressure of 1 bar) is given the symbol S°. You might find the pressure quoted as 1 atmosphere rather than 1 bar in older sources. Don't worry about it - they are nearly the same. 1 bar is 100 kPa; 1 atmosphere is 101.325 kPa. Use whatever units the examiners give you.

Here are some standard entropies for a few solids, all with the units J K-1mol-1:

These all have low entropies because they are highly ordered solids, but notice that the entropy usually increases as the solid gets more complicated.

What happens during change of state? The following figures are for the standard entropy of water in different states.

The entropy increases as the molecules become more disordered as you go from solid to liquid to gas.

Notice that there isn't very big jump in entropy when ice turns to water. That's because the hydrogen bonding between the liquid molecules imposes a fair amount of order on them even in the liquid.

. . . and for benzene:

Notice that the benzene values are bigger than those of water-steam. This is because benzene is a more complicated molecule. There are more ways of arranging the energy of the molecule in a disordered way over bigger molecules than smaller ones.

What happens when an ionic solid dissolves in water?

The ionic solid is highly ordered, and so has a relatively low entropy. Pure liquid water also has a certain amount of order as explained above. But when the solid dissolves in water, the whole system becomes highly disordered as the crystal breaks up and the ions find their way between the water molecules. Entropy increases.

What is increasing entropy?

What is entropy with example?

What is an example of entropy decreasing?