entropy

• n. [熱] 熵（熱力學函數）

en-, 進入，使。-trop, 轉，混亂，詞源同turn, tropical. 即進入混亂狀態，後用於科學術語，指無序狀態的測量。

entropy

entropy: [19] The term entropy was coined (as entropie) in 1865 by the German physicist Rudolph Clausius (1822–88), formulator of the second law of thermodynamics. It was he who developed the concept of entropy (a measure of the disorder of a system at atomic or molecular level), and he created the name for it (on the model of energy) from Greek en- ‘in’ and tropé ‘turning, transformation’ (source of English trophy and tropical). The first record of the English version of the word is from 1868.
=> trophy, tropical

entropy (n.)

1868, from German Entropie "measure of the disorder of a system," coined 1865 (on analogy of Energie) by German physicist Rudolph Clausius (1822-1888), in his work on the laws of thermodynamics, from Greek entropia "a turning toward," from en "in" (see en- (2)) + trope "a turning, a transformation" (see trope). The notion is supposed to be "transformation contents." Related: Entropic.

It was not until 1865 that Clausius invented the word entropy as a suitable name for what he had been calling "the transformational content of the body." The new word made it possible to state the second law in the brief but portentous form: "The entropy of the universe tends toward a maximum," but Clausius did not view entropy as the basic concept for understanding that law. He preferred to express the physical meaning of the second law in terms of the concept of disgregation, another word that he coined, a concept that never became part of the accepted structure of thermodynamics. [Martin J. Klein, "The Scientific Style of Josiah Willard Gibbs," in "A Century of Nathematics in America," 1989]

1. In the business world, entropy rules.

在商業世界中，無序狀態主宰一切。

來自《權威詞典》

2. No matter how much of a misanthrope you are there is such a thing as entropy and it will catch up with you sooner or later.

不論你是一個多麽不願意與人交往的人，你遲早會被成千上百萬條的信息包圍。

來自辭典例句

3. The entropy density is constant ahead of the shock.

衝擊波前方的熵密度是恒定的.

來自辭典例句

4. They can adopt conformations which lead to maximum entropy.

他們可以采取有最大熵值的構象.

來自辭典例句

5. The second law only allows us to calculate changes in entropy.

第二定律隻能讓我們計算熵的改變量.

來自辭典例句