Understanding Entropy in Chemistry - What Is Entropy in Chemistry?

Understanding Entropy in Chemistry - What Is Entropy in Chemistry?So you're saying that the whole idea of entropy in chemistry is completely backwards? What you're doing is saying that there is a lower order of randomness, and that's not entropy in chemistry. An imbalance in entropy or some kind of disturbance like a shock or disturbance, is not the cause of change in a molecule.No matter how many times they say it, it doesn't make any sense to say that one random chemical process affects another random chemical process. When you get down to the first principle of chemistry, the first law of thermodynamics, it's not entropy in chemistry. It's called randomness. What it means is that as you heat up a gas or liquid, that gas or liquid will take on less of its own weight than the temperature.This means that, at the very first, second or even tenth level of molecular scales, molecules can't possibly be as stable as they look from the outside. On the smaller scales, the basic properties o f things can be much more complex than we are normally led to believe.The best example of this is the mixing of two chemicals that would normally react in a chemical reaction in the exact same way but at opposite ends of the spectrum. You can think of it as a wave. If you step on one side of the wave, and you step on the other side of the wave, you get a different wave frequency. This is true of waves and the molecules in a chemical reaction.It's something that you might not understand from a physics class but is very important in chemistry. Let's say that you are reacting n-butane with ethanol and you can determine the boiling point by working out the molecular weight. In the n-butane and ethanol reaction, you might also find that the reactants and products have different molecular weights. But, do you know that if you substitute one of those reactions for the other, then you will get a reaction that looks very similar to the one you started with?Now, I could go on to explain this, but you need to understand that all of these things are chemical reactions at the end of the day and PVC pipe has many of the same properties as alcohol. They both boil at the same temperature. They both mix well with water and they both react with each other. In a way, they are identical, as long as you can find the right solution to keep them mixing.Something else to consider is that, sample analysis shows that n-butane and ethanol come with the same molecular weights. If you could mix them up, say, the first time, and measure the change in the pH of the liquid, you would find that the whole chemical reaction had changed slightly. To call that a change in entropy in chemistry is just silly, and I don't want to spend the next few paragraphs explaining why.Be wise and just say that you want to know what's going on, ask the chemist and he will tell you the answer. Only when you understand it, will you understand the real meaning of entropy in chemistry.