Entropy: Embrace the Chaos! Crash Course Chemistry #20

Life is chaos and the universe tends toward disorder. But why? If you think about it, there are only a few ways for things to be arranged in an organized manner, but there are nearly infinite other ways for those same things to be arranged. Simple rules of probability dictate that it’s much more likely for stuff to be in one of the many disorganized states than in one of the few organized states. This tendency is so unavoidable that it’s known as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Obviously, disorder is a pretty big deal in the universe and that makes it a pretty big deal in chemistry—it’s such a big deal that scientists have a special name for it: entropy. In chemistry, entropy is the measure of molecular randomness, or disorder. For the next thirteen minutes, Hank hopes you will embrace the chaos as he teaches you about entropy.

You can view the transcript for “Entropy: Embrace the Chaos! Crash Course Chemistry #20” here (opens in new window).

You can view the transcript for “Spontaneous Processes” here (opens in new window).