entropy

entropy

English

Etymology

First attested in 1867, as the translation of German Entropie, coined in 1865 by Rudolph Clausius in analogy to Energie (“energy”), replacing the root of Ancient Greek ἔργον (érgon, “work”) by Ancient Greek τροπή (tropḗ, “transformation”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛntɹəpi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

entropy (countable and uncountable, plural entropies)

1. A measure of the disorder present in a system.
   1. (Boltzmann definition) A measure of the disorder directly proportional to the natural logarithm of the number of microstates yielding an equivalent thermodynamic macrostate.
   2. (information theory) Shannon entropy
2. (thermodynamics, countable) A measure of the amount of energy in a physical system that cannot be used to do work.
3. The capacity factor for thermal energy that is hidden with respect to temperature.[1]
4. The dispersal of energy; how much energy is spread out in a process, or how widely spread out it becomes, at a specific temperature.[2]
5. (statistics, information theory, countable) A measure of the amount of information and noise present in a signal.
6. (uncountable) The tendency of a system that is left to itself to descend into chaos.

Synonyms

• anergy
• bound entropy
• disgregation

Antonyms

• aggregation
• exergy
• free entropy
• negentropy

Derived terms

Derived terms

• algorithmic entropy
• conditional entropy
• extropy
• high-entropy alloy
• information entropy
• joint entropy
• negentropy
• Shannon entropy
• von Neumann entropy

Translations

term in thermodynamics

Basque: entropia (eu) Bengali: এনট্রপি (enôṭrôpi) Catalan: entropia (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 熵 (zh) (shāng) Czech: entropie f Danish: entropi c Dutch: entropie (nl) Esperanto: entropio Finnish: entropia (fi) French: entropie (fr) f German: Entropie (de) f Greek: εντροπία (el) f (entropía) Icelandic: óreiða Irish: eantrópacht f Italian: entropia (it) f Japanese: エントロピー (entoropī) Korean: 엔트로피 (ko) (enteuropi) Latin: entropia f Maori: pūngao ngoikore Occitan: entropia f Persian: آنتروپی‎ (fa) Polish: entropia (pl) f Portuguese: entropia (pt) f Romanian: entropie (ro) f Russian: энтропи́я (ru) f (entropíja) Spanish: entropía (es) f Tagalog: malikusog Tamil: சிதறம் (ta) (citaṟam) Turkish: entropi (tr) Ukrainian: ентропі́я f (entropíja) Welsh: entropi m

measure of the amount of information in a signal

Chinese: Mandarin: 熵 (zh) (shāng) Esperanto: entropio Finnish: entropia (fi) German: Entropie (de) f Greek: εντροπία (el) f (entropía) Italian: entropia (it) f Japanese: エントロピー (entoropī) Polish: entropia (pl) f Portuguese: entropia (pt) f Romanian: entropie (ro) f Russian: энтропи́я (ru) f (entropíja) Spanish: entropía (es) f

tendency of a system to descend into chaos

Chinese: Mandarin: 熵 (zh) (shāng) Danish: entropi c Finnish: entropia (fi) German: Entropie (de) f Greek: εντροπία (el) f (entropía) Italian: entropia (it) f Latin: entropia f Polish: entropia (pl) f Portuguese: entropia (pt) f Romanian: entropie (ro) f Russian: энтропи́я (ru) f (entropíja) Spanish: entropía (es) f Ukrainian: ентропі́я f (entropíja)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

French: (please verify) entropie (fr) f Interlingua: (please verify) entropia Latin: (please verify) entropia f Spanish: (please verify) entropía (es) f

See also

• chaos

References

1. Clinton D. Stoner (2001-11-07), “Inquiries into the Nature of Free Energy and Entropy in Respect to Biochemical Thermodynamics”, in arXiv‎, DOI:10.3390/e2030106, arXiv: physics/0004055
2. Frank Lambert (February 2006), “A Student’s Approach to the Second Law and Entropy”, in Entropy Site‎, archived from the original on 2006-07-02, retrieved 2022-02-20

Further reading

• entropy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• entropy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• entropy at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Poynter, peryton