Canonical · Physics & Entropy · Model

Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Rudolf Clausius · 1865

"Every closed system trends toward disorder, and that one-way drift is the only law of physics that distinguishes past from future."

The idea

Clausius gave disorder a name and a law in 1865: entropy only goes up. It's the reason ice melts but never un-melts — the only physical law that points in a single direction, forward.

Why it works

The takeaway — recall it first

The Uncertainty Principle

"There is a fundamental limit to how precisely you can simultaneously know a particle's position and momentum — not because of instrument error, but because of the underlying nature of reality at the quantum scale."

Werner Heisenberg · PaperContinue→