Entropy (energy dispersal)

In thermodynamics, the interpretation of entropy as a measure of energy dispersal has been exercised against the background of the traditional view, introduced by Ludwig Boltzmann, of entropy as a quantitative measure of disorder. The energy dispersal approach avoids the ambiguous term 'disorder'. An early advocate of the energy dispersal conception was Edward A. Guggenheim in 1949, using the word 'spread'. In this alternative approach, entropy is a measure of energy dispersal or spread at a specific temperature. Changes in entropy can be quantitatively related to the distribution or the spreading out of the energy of a thermodynamic system, divided by its temperature. Some educators propose that the energy dispersal idea is easier to understand than the traditional approach. The concept has been used to facilitate teaching entropy to students beginning university chemistry and biology. The term "entropy" has been in use from early in the history of classical thermodynamics, and with the development of statistical thermodynamics and quantum theory, entropy changes have been described in terms of the mixing or "spreading" of the total energy of each constituent of a system over its particular quantized energy levels. Such descriptions have tended to be used together with commonly used terms such as disorder and randomness, which are ambiguous, and whose everyday meaning is the opposite of what they are intended to mean in thermodynamics. Not only does this situation cause confusion, but it also hampers the teaching of thermodynamics. Students were being asked to grasp meanings directly contradicting their normal usage, with equilibrium being equated to "perfect internal disorder" and the mixing of milk in coffee from apparent chaos to uniformity being described as a transition from an ordered state into a disordered state. The description of entropy as the amount of "mixedupness" or "disorder," as well as the abstract nature of the statistical mechanics grounding this notion, can lead to confusion and considerable difficulty for those beginning the subject.