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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 2002  > October  >
In the Classroom
Entropy Is Simple, Qualitatively
Frank L. Lambert
La Verne, CA 91750
Cover
October 2002
Vol. 79 No. 10
p. 1241
Abstract
Qualitatively, entropy is simple. What it is, why it is useful in understanding the behavior of macro systems or of molecular systems is easy to state: Entropy increase from a macro viewpoint is a measure of the dispersal of energy from localized to spread out at a temperature T. The conventional q in qrev/T is the energy dispersed to or from a substance or a system. On a molecular basis, entropy increase means that a system changes from having fewer accessible microstates to having a larger number of accessible microstates. Fundamentally based on statistical and quantum mechanics, this approach is superior to the non-fundamental "disorder" as a descriptor of entropy change. The foregoing in no way denies the subtlety or the difficulty presented by entropy in thermodynamics—to first-year students or to professionals. However, as an aid to beginners in their quantitative study of thermodynamics, the qualitative conclusions in this article give students the advantage of a clear bird’s-eye view of why entropy increases in a wide variety of basic cases: a substance going from 0 K to T, phase change, gas expansion, mixing of ideal gases or liquids, colligative effects, and the Gibbs equation.

See Letter re: this article.
More Information
*  Citation
 Lambert, Frank L. J. Chem. Educ. 2002 79 1241.
*  Keywords
 General Chemistry; Introductory / High School Chemistry; Textbooks; Thermodynamics
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 August 29, 2002
March 16, 2005
Link to Letter added (April 2004).
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