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Re: entropy



Leigh Palmer says:

I have a very clear idea of what disorder is. Related to a pack of cards
I can tell you that a new pack is rarely as disordered straight out of
the box as it is after it has been shuffled. I shall demonstrate* that
the entropy of the pack of cards has nothing whatever to do with its
entropy, and that should thorougly discredit the analogy.


Am I correct that the difference between this disorder you are refering to
and the kind appropriate to entropy is this:
A single pack of cards in a particular sequence can be "disordered",
while to talk about entropy you need an ensemble of sequences.

I'm not sure I've said that well. What I'm trying to suggest is that
entropy (one kind of disorder) applies when a system is changing between
many microstates. A second kind of disorder is when a system is in a
single, unorganized microstate. Are you are concerned about students
making a distinction between these two kinds of disorder?

Or is there a third (, fourth...) kind of disorder that I'm missing and
that muddies the waters further?

--
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UCSD