engleski

Entropy and interdisciplinarity

The entropy is the most important term in thermodynamics, but at the same time its concept is rather difficult to understand. There is no straightforward definition for entropy but generally the entropy of a system in thermodynamics is defined in terms of a differential equation for infinitesimal change in entropy. Although, the concept of entropy is not very concrete, rather it is somewhat philosophical in nature, it can be used in explanations of different processes in various fields of interest. The ideas of disorder and entropy are clearly brought home with the use of a statistical analysis of the molecular state of system. The entropy as a measure of molecular disorder offers the information about direction of time. An increase in entropy indicates an increase in disorder. During spontaneous processes in isolated systems the entropy increases and reaches the maximum value when equilibrium is attained. This does not necessarily mean that the entropy of nonisolated system can never decrease. The students meat this concept in higher classes of secondary school, and later on the universities. In the frame of seminars, they can discus about high ordered biological systems in the connection with the concept of entropy. Moreover, students will treat some problems using maximum entropy principle as general method applicable to determination of probability distribution based on partial information.

entropy; interdisciplinarity

nije evidentirano