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Entropy is one of the few quantities in the physical sciences that require a particular direction for time, sometimes called an arrow of time. As one goes "forward" in time, the second law of thermodynamics says, the entropy of an isolated system can increase, but not decrease. Thus, entropy measurement is a way of distinguishing the past from ...
The term entropy is often used in popular language to denote a variety of unrelated phenomena. One example is the concept of corporate entropy as put forward somewhat humorously by authors Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister in their 1987 classic publication Peopleware, a book on growing and managing productive teams and successful software projects ...
The past hypothesis is an exception to the principle of indifference, according to which every possible microstate within a certain macrostate would have an equal probability. The past hypothesis allows only those microstates that are compatible with a much-lower-entropy past, although these states are assigned equal probabilities.
It is in this sense that entropy is a measure of the energy in a system that cannot be used to do work. An irreversible process degrades the performance of a thermodynamic system, designed to do work or produce cooling, and results in entropy production. The entropy generation during a reversible process is zero. Thus entropy production is a ...
Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, ...
Research concerning the relationship between the thermodynamic quantity entropy and both the origin and evolution of life began around the turn of the 20th century. In 1910 American historian Henry Adams printed and distributed to university libraries and history professors the small volume A Letter to American Teachers of History proposing a theory of history based on the second law of ...
This asymmetry can be used empirically to distinguish between future and past, though measuring entropy does not accurately measure time. Also, in an open system, entropy can decrease with time. An interesting thought experiment would be to ask: "if entropy was increased in an open system, would the arrow of time flip in polarity and point ...
The first is the macroscopic version which Price claims is associated with the low entropy past. The second is the microscopic version, which Price terms μInnocence. Price argues that, while the low entropy past gives us some reason to accept the macroscopic version, there is less reason to accept μInnocence.