Bobpursley:
Which of the following systems have high entropy? Which systems have low entropy?
a. papers scattered randomly across a desk
b. a freshly opened pack of cards
c. a cultivated field of cabbages
d. a room after a party
I sent this to you earlier and I think you missed understood the directions. There is not just one answer choice. For each one, you pick either high or low.
I know. AGain, these have nothing to do with Entropy.
It irritated that your text publisher does not know this, and your teacher has not pointed out to you what entropy is. It is not your fault.
Pretend Entropy is disorder. High entropy is high disorder (pretend). So for instance c is low disorder. and a, b, and d is disorder. Situation b can be argued, if the opened pack does not mean shuffled, then perhaps it is not so disordered.
Again, these situations have little to do with energy unavailable to do work. Such is life.
Here is what your text did not tell you:
<<Some care must be taken about how you define "disorder" if you are going to use it to understand entropy. A more precise way to characterize entropy is to say that it is a measure of the "multiplicity" associated with the state of the objects. If a given state can be accomplished in many more ways, then it is more probable than one which can be accomplished in only a few ways. When "throwing dice", throwing a seven is more probable than a two because you can produce seven in six different ways and there is only one way to produce a two. So seven has a higher multiplicity than a two, and we could say that a seven represents higher "disorder" or higher entropy.
To determine whether each system has high or low entropy, we need to consider the level of disorder in each system. Remember that in the context of entropy, high entropy is associated with high disorder.
a. Papers scattered randomly across a desk: This system has high entropy because the papers are scattered randomly, indicating a high level of disorder.
b. A freshly opened pack of cards: This system can be argued to have either high or low entropy depending on the interpretation. If the pack is freshly opened but not shuffled, it would have low entropy as the cards are in a relatively ordered state. However, if the pack is randomly shuffled, it would have high entropy due to the increased disorder.
c. A cultivated field of cabbages: This system has low entropy because a cultivated field of cabbages is organized and structured, indicating a low level of disorder.
d. A room after a party: This system has high entropy because a room after a party is typically messy and disorganized, indicating a high level of disorder.
In summary, systems with high entropy have a higher level of disorder, while systems with low entropy have a lower level of disorder.