What is entropy? - Jeff Phillips

There’s a concept that’s crucial to chemistry and physics. It helps explain why physical processes go one way and not the other: why ice melts, why cream spreads in coffee, why air leaks out of a punctured tire. It’s entropy, and it’s notoriously difficult to wrap our heads around. Jeff Phillips gives a crash course on entropy.

Lesson by Jeff Phillips, animation by Provincia Studio.

[vanceadrianeangayan]

Mom: "Why is your room so messy?"
Me: "It's not me, its entropy"

[vipin]

Entropy is everywhere, even in our daily life. We don't realize it.

For example, there are two libraries A and B. Both these libraries contain exactly the same number of books. All the titles available in library A are available in library B as well. Imagine that library A is well stacked and library B is just a huge pile of books and all the books are just dumped.
As per the first law of thermodynamics, both these libraries are equal, (energy is conserved). But anyone who wants to take a book and do some reading will prefer library A only, which is well stacked and ordered ( Less entropy).

Library A has less entropy and more order. While B has higher entropy and less order. We need to spend energy to bring it to order.

So basically entropy is a measure of disorder or randomness. Higher the disorder higher the entropy. We cannot measure/calculate entropy for all the process or in other words it is very difficult to measure the entropy for some processes. There are equations for some standard engineering and chemical processes to calculate entropy.
If entropy associated with a process is very high, the process tends to have low efficiency.

Ref: Thermodynamics : An engineering approach. Y A Cengel

[po-ta-to]

Low entropy=enegry concentrated
High entropy=enrgy spreads out
They're the two things i can only understand -, -

[Tomj]

I thought I was confused before. I definitely am now

[ViktorKlemming]

Jeff Philips: "The chances that the icewater will make the coffe warmer are
Me: "So you're telling me there is a chance!"
Jeff Philips: "You did not understand one word in this entire video did you?"
Me: "Not a single word."

[emilybarker]

I think this was the best explanation of entropy I've seen. I always hated when professors described it as disorder to me because that begs the question, 'well what is disorder?' That is why I am always so careful to describe the statistics of entropy to my first year chemistry students. My one suggestion for your video would be to talk about translational entropy instead of vibrational/rotational energy because students tend to have a very difficult time conceptualizing bond energy unless you explicitly describe it in more detail than just stored energy, whereas kinetic energy is more intuitive for them.

[josel]

I took an off day today at work to relax myself then this recommended video appeared. I got more stressed and confused as ever. I am in high entropy.

[hejda]

Is it just me or did yall brains take a vacation while your eyes and ears worked so hard to understand what he is saying?

[ninaa]

"Don't try to understand it. Feel it."

[alihammadraza]

I read a joke when I was in the university about a professor who gave the same question for decades in exams asking pupils to define entropy. Several years later a colleague questioned why he was repeating the said question. The professor replied that although the question about entropy is same all the time I simply change the answer! This video is an excellent example of how confusing entropy can get.

[samramido]

Good animation. Good pronunciation. By the way, what are you talking about? 😂

[swargpatel]

This is by far the best explanation of entropy I’ve ever seen. I’ve been trying to understand the complex concept for a while now and now I finally get it! Science seems to have an endless list of awesome concepts doesn’t it?

[SKRsoul]

First 10 seconds: yes, indeed.
Rest of the video: 😐

[CODMReaper]

Dude just goes Saiyan after learning about Entropy.

[uranus]

"Entropy is the direct measure of each energy configuration's probability..."
This is the most exact and best explanation I have ever heard.
It immediately clicked once you said that. Thanks 😊

[oliver]

just imagine this; you're sitting at your desk or something and your dinnner just starts to lol

[vdb]

Brilliant explanation! I don't understand why there are so many people in the comments that claim that this was poorly explained. It made perfect sense to me, I'm sure there are people that agree.

[alvee]

We are quite blessed to have information like this so easily available

[blackcat-mpkh]

what I understood is
Low S= energy is concentrated
High S= Energy is spread out

[saipawankumar]

Thank God someone took the time for explaining this. This makes so much sense. When people said entropy is from order to disorder, it never made sense to me.. Cuz how do you define order?