![]() However, after sufficient time has passed, the system reaches a uniform color, a state much easier to describe and explain.īoltzmann formulated a simple relationship between entropy and the number of possible microstates of a system, which is denoted by the symbol Ω. The dye diffuses in a complicated manner, which is difficult to precisely predict. ![]() However, this description is relatively simple only when the system is in a state of equilibrium.Įquilibrium may be illustrated with a simple example of a drop of food coloring falling into a glass of water. Therefore, the system can be described as a whole by only a few macroscopic parameters, called the thermodynamic variables: the total energy E, volume V, pressure P, temperature T, and so forth. The ensemble of microstates comprises a statistical distribution of probability for each microstate, and the group of most probable configurations accounts for the macroscopic state. The large number of particles of the gas provides an infinite number of possible microstates for the sample, but collectively they exhibit a well-defined average of configuration, which is exhibited as the macrostate of the system, to which each individual microstate contribution is negligibly small. Thermodynamic entropy is a numerical measure that can be assigned to a given body by experiment unless disorder can be defined with equal precision, the relation between the two remains too vague to serve as a basis for deduction. The collisions with the walls produce the macroscopic pressure of the gas, which illustrates the connection between microscopic and macroscopic phenomena.Ī microstate of the system is a description of the positions and momenta of all its particles. At a microscopic level, the gas consists of a vast number of freely moving atoms or molecules, which randomly collide with one another and with the walls of the container. The easily measurable parameters volume, pressure, and temperature of the gas describe its macroscopic condition ( state). A useful illustration is the example of a sample of gas contained in a container. This equation, known as the Boltzmann’s entropy formula, relates the microscopic details, or microstates, of the system (via W) to its macroscopic state (via the entropy S). Ludwig Boltzmann defined entropy as a measure of the number of possible microscopic states ( microstates) of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, consistent with its macroscopic thermodynamic properties, which constitute the macrostate of the system. Mathematically, the exact definition is: Entropy (Boltzmann’s constant k) x logarithm of number of possible states. Main article: Boltzmann's entropy formula ![]()
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