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Definition/Meaning

(noun)

A measure of disorder or randomness in a system.

e.g. The entropy in the room was evident in the scattered papers.

(noun)

a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system's disorder, that is a property of the system's state, and that varies directly with any reversible change in heat in the system and inversely with the temperature of the system;

e.g. They were set to calculate the entropy before it turned unstable.

(noun)

a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder;

e.g. Climate change is a telltale sign of entropy within the world.

(noun)

(statistical mechanics) a factor or quantity that is a function of the physical state of a mechanical system and is equal to the logarithm of the probability for the occurrence of the particular molecular arrangement in that state;

e.g. They searched for the range of entropy in their math class by solving applied problems.

(noun)

(communication theory) a measure of the efficiency of a system (such as a code or a language) in transmitting information, being equal to the logarithm of the number of different messages that can be sent by selection from the same set of symbols and thus indicating the degree of initial uncertainty that can be resolved by any one message;

e.g. They ran a hypothetical email transmission and used it to calculate the entropy of its relation to the other side of the message.

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Similar Words

Collapse

Decline

Degeneration

Degradation

Deterioration

Down

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