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You are one of the best ones out there . I am in class 9 and i love ypur explanations . Please try one on some things like quantum string theory or forces of nature or something new in chemistry or physics
One of the common themes I like most in many of your videos is that you make the insights of Feynman in his lectures clear and accessible to a modern audience. Great work !
This is one of the best science communication channels out there. The science is rigorous and grounded, and it’s explained in an intuitive way without confusing the audience with fancy jargon. Every time I watch a video, I come away with a deeper understanding, and the sheer passion with which he talks about these concepts is contagious. Please don’t ever stop making videos!!!
"when you learn something new, try to critique it, try to break it, and see what your logical flaw is, because that's how you deepen your understanding" is one of the most powerful phrases i've ever heard out of an educator. Beautifully said, Mahesh!
Oh boy please never stop posting these informational videos that often our teachers just let go under the rug. They just want us to memorize and here you are, the Messiah, reviving my curiosity 😂. Thank you very much. I just came across this entropy thing in thermodynamics and well I can solve questions but I understand nothing about it. I am very confident now I will know after seeing your video. Thanks again
Bro, explain pauli exclusion principle next... Why bosons are symmetric and stay together and why electrons are asymmetric and can't occupy same quantum state.
I thought I understood things. Watching your videos has helped me understand that I did, but not at the level that I thought I did. This has really helped me have some "ah, that is the part that I was missing!" moments, and I adore that. Great stuff, and I love your energy. I wish you much success.
I have a bachelors in physics and I didn’t realize just how surface level my understanding of entropy was till I watched this video. You have a beautiful way of explaining physics
Damn dude. I have struggled for so long with trying to have a more intuitive understanding of what is really being described by the term entropy. I have read books and watched countless videos on it. I have sat around thinking about it for hours. And here you made it so simple and so intuitive and did it in such a short amount of time. I could literally feel the lightbulb go off in my head. It's like a burden has been lifted...lol. You have a real gift. Thank you!
He was kind of off the mark when he talked about irreversibility, as diffusing milk is theoretically reversible and respects T-symmetry. Other than that, he did a really good job.
In order to use arrangements probabilities, the positions must be independent from each other. But this not the case here 12:55 because atoms collide with each other so they are not interindependant. So the probability is not 0.02% (0.18/850) but actually lower because collisions maximizes the distance between atoms. (Hence low temperature creates solids)
As an electrophysiologist interested in biophysics, I've always found the diffusion phenomenon fascinating. I love how Schrödinger put it in his book "What is life" : "Imagine a vessel filled with a fluid, say water, with a small amount of some coloured substance dissolved in it, say potassium permanganate, not in uniform concentration, but rather as in Fig. 4, where the dots indicate the molecules of the dissolved substance (permanganate) and the concentration diminishes from left to right. If you leave this system alone a very slow process of 'diffusion' sets in, the permanganate spreading in the direction from left to right, that is, from the places of higher concentration towards the places of lower concentration, until it is equally distributed through the water. The remarkable thing about this rather simple and apparently not particularly interesting process is that it is in no way due, as one might think, to any tendency or force driving the permanganate molecules away from the crowded region to the less crowded one, like the population of a country spreading to those parts where there is more elbow-room. Nothing of the sort happens with our permanganate molecules. Everyone of them behaves quite independently of all the others, which it very seldom meets. Everyone of them, whether in a crowded region or in an empty one, suffers the same fate of being continually knocked about by the impacts of the water molecules and thereby gradually moving on in an unpredictable direction - sometimes towards the higher, sometimes towards the lower, concentrations, sometimes obliquely. The kind of motion it performs has often been compared with that of a blindfolded person on a large surface imbued with a certain desire of 'walking', but without any preference for any particular direction, and so changing his line continuously. That this random walk of the permanganate molecules, the same for all of them, should yet produce a regular flow towards the smaller concentration and ultimately make for uniformity of distribution, is at first sight perplexing - but only at first sight. If you contemplate in Fig. 4 thin slices of approximately constant concentration, the permanganate molecules which in a given moment are contained in a particular slice will, by their random walk, it is true, be carried with equal probability to the right or to the left. But precisely in consequence of this, a plane separating two neighbouring slices will be crossed by more molecules coming from the left than in the opposite direction, simply because to the left there are more molecules engaged in random walk than there are to the right. And as long as that is so the balance will show up as a regular flow from left to right, until a uniform distribution is reached." Just beautiful. Thanks for all of your work Mahesh!
There is one problem with the example about the balls in the slots. It assumes that balls will take a random position at any point in time. Assuming that each ball will pick an initial cardinal direction to move when the space is opened then they could try to move into the wall. Since they can't move then they will remain in place. Same with the other balls if they try to move in a space that is occupied. That means some patterns are more likely that others as those patterns would be repeated in the set. So not every single pattern is just as likely. Also, if we assume each ball starts with an amount of energy, that energy slightly dissipates every time it has an interaction with another ball or the wall. Also, each ball will transfer it's energy to the other ball it comes in contact with. This means the patterns cannot be random and would be deterministic. Some patterns are more likely than others. So, in the end, when all meaningful energy is lost in the system, we are more likely to see a pattern of balls that are evenly spread throughout the space than to see them clustered in a corner. That's why when gas fills a chamber, it spreads throughout the chamber and not remaining or rearranging at any point to stick into a corner because that would require more energy to put it there and then more energy to negate the new high energy state that it would be in. High Energy = Low Entropy Low Energy = High Entropy
please sir, bhaiya, anna , please never stop making these kind of videos, its insipiring and very informative for students those who are passionate about science(physics and chem mainly)
Hi, I had several questions 18:37 Q1 Why does the gas heat up? What phenomenon causes the gas to heat up when compressed? 22:01 Q2 What if the demon forgets all the information? Does it mean entropy decreased? Q3 When you stretch a rubber band it heats up slightly They say it's coz the molecules become less chaotic and become straight and arranged. And as entropy cant decrease it heats up But i can't understand why would a molecule decide to heat up... I mean it doesn't have a conscience to follow the laws of physics...
Q1: The piston applies a force to the gas before stopping. When the piston stops, what happens to the work done (i.e the energy) by the piston? Work is done on the molecules, which becomes kinetic energy. And while this kinetic energy can be distributed in many different ways (hence high entropy), the gas as a whole has a higher average kinetic energy. Temperature is a macro property that corresponds to the the average kinetic energy. So if there is a higher average kinetic energy, then temperature will increase. Q2: If the demon forgets then there is some outside process that flips the 1s into 0s such that the number of microstates reduce. We end up having a similar to the fridge, where you have to consider the entire system. If the demon is a computer system for example, then forgetting might be due to cosmic rays hitting the brain, or energy leakage as heat into the surrounding, or physical damage to the brain. In all these cases, the entropy increases, since demon + box of molecules + forgetting process will have more microstates after the demon forgets than before the demon forgets. Q3: This is similar to Q1. When gou stretch a rubber band, it gets thinner, and molecules get aligned into an "ordered" structure. "Ordered" is in quotes because like what the video said, being in a nicely arranged microstate isnt more likely than a disordered microstate. What matters is the number of microstates available. Now your hands also apply work to pull the rubber band apart. Where does the energy from your pulling go to? Here it becomes kinetic energy in molecules to align the molecules and make then vibrate more. (Imagine pulling a slack rope tight and how it starts to vibrate like a guitar string when you do) And since temperature is the average kinetic energy, the rubber band heats up.
1) considering an adiabatic system. no heat exchanged) during compression, work is done on the gas, the energy is absorbed by the gas particles, dW=dU in dt time interval energy absorbed "dU" = nCvdT is >0 hence dT>0 hence temp increases. 2)the information while going into the demons brain was increasing entropy, forgetting the information is another task 3) nature decided what happens, we can only accept and study it
@@nukeeverything1802 what happens if all available microstates in maxwells demons memory are 1 then it has low entropy cause there is only one state possible?
@@nukeeverything1802 say the information is stored in cells surrounded by a dispersed hot gas, when that gas hits the cells, they turn into 0s. The demon will forget automatically without the entropy increasing because the gas is already at maximum entropy. No outside energy is used.
I head read many physics books throughout my life and I'm surprised I'm still learning something new from you! You are a great science communicator, and please, never stop making these!
A huge huge yes Mahesh sir!!!!! ✨✨✨🔥 We would love to see more of your videos on such topics. Entropy with Black Holes and Holographic principle sound awesome. The internet is full of videos that either just talk speculatively or dive deep into the maths. But we miss the intuition! It would be heartwarming and enlightening to have a delicacy (as always), from you on the topics.....❤
Just looking at the first example with coffee and cream (I haven't even watched the rest of the video yet), this is the difference between entropy of a system and the Kolmogorov complexity of the large-scale features of that system. Essentially, the features of the half-mixed coffee-and-cream that are large enough for us to see are complicated and difficult to describe, while the homogeneous mixture is very easy to describe on our scale. But trying to describe the *exact* state of the system, the position of each molecule of fat and caffeine and water and sugar is easier in the half-mixed case. And it is this more small-scale Kolmogorov complexity that's more closely tied to entropy. (Kolmogorov complexity is basically "How many words do you need to describe the thing?" For the macroscopic state of the fully mixed coffee, that basically amounts to listing a few concentrations and a temperature, so relatively low complexity. For the half-mixed, you have to describe the shape of the main boundary between cream and coffee, and you probably have to describe regions of different mixing ratios. All in all a much longer description is needed.)
You are such a breeze to my life. I spend days without sleep thinking about this stuff. Your explanations are such a relief to my questioning brain. I may be an extreme case of over thinker about reality itself, but your channel is the answer I am seeking all along. Thank you is such a small word. You have no idea how much peace you have brought into my life. 🙏🏻
Phenomenal explanation, Mahesh. One error in the advertisement for Ground News, though. The articles about the hospitalized astronaut are not about Sunita Williams. She is *still* stuck in space -- and her health is at risk. But the articles about hospitalized astronauts are about another, unnamed astronaut who were taken to hospital after landing.
Dios mío, I've just subscribed. I studied chemical engineering 'til 5th year, and these questions and topics have always been on my mind. Entropy has always been a topic that fascinated me deeply, but I always thought I didn't quite get it. I quit studying this career because I learned about myself that I did not care about applying this stuff to industrial growth, and I'd rather think and philosophize about it, but that's a different story. Your videos made me want to get back to this. Get back to science, to question everything. Thank you for that. Greetings from Argentina.
The way you explain the complexities of a topic. The way the idea originated in the authors mind and how he tackled it gives an intuitive way for us to re-learn our own thinking process that we long lost since school times, and thats what makes your videos more fun and intuitive to watch. You bring joy to learning and thats truly an immense talent and hardwork you put in. Thank you for all your videos. Waiting for more.
Your enthusiasm is infectious! I wish I had teachers like you when I was a physics grad student in Göttingen. I dropped out due to falling behind and depression. I've moved on to a career in CS, but I still love physics.
The notification made me so excited!! I was studying about this recently and yes understood more than I did before but obviously lesser than I should....and wondered if you've made a video on this!! Now I'll save this for tomorrow morning to start off the day the right way but even before watching the video I know this is greatand & rare high quality physics content so massive. THANK YOU!!
Mahesh, some further points about Entropy to consider: 1. Is a Microstate merely positional? Presumably not if Temperature increases number of Microstates. Momentum values now separate microstates also. 2. Classically we can measure (position) to arbitrary accuracy. So again what is a Microstate? Presumably a range of numbers/positions per microstate. So what is the physical significance of these regions, if any? Do they depend on the measuring apparatus, for example? It has been argued that classical physics never resolved these issues, but that the Planck volumes fixed this. 3. Also why does the Maxwell Demon brain get filled up with all that data? Once it has done a sorting task, cannot it just forget the data and move onto the next molecule? I think that the answer to this is that deleting data generates Entropy, but this could be explained further.
At 18:50 just nailed it. That was a hit on the nail point of view❤❤❤❤ In last 2 minutes, I am really feeling greatful to god because I clicked this video to watch.
Awesome as always 😃🤯 Your enthusiasm is contagious and I feel as if I drunk lots of irreversible latte macchiato. Your statistics example with the micro states also illustrates why playing the lottery is not really a good idea. Looking forward to your grasp on the Fermi Paradox (which is disturbing) and all the juicy stuff you mentioned! Kudos
I love your videos. Takes topics that we’ve all heard of, huge things, and breaks them down into understandable bites until we can digest all of it. Bravo my man
You are one of the best educational channels on this platform. Your enthusiasm and ability to explain complicated (for me) ideas in an understandable way is greatly appreciated. Hopefully your channel will continue to grow.
I also made the mistake of thinking it was a measurement of order and disorder because the most classic examples are the tidy room and the sand castle. After this video I finally grasped what entropy truly is. And for that I thank you!
I'm glad more people are finally talking about this, from the moment I learned about entropy as part of my IB chemistry, I knew that something was philosophically off-putting
Great video. I feel I understand entropy much more now. Thinking back to the question of the balls thrown into the box, I started asking myself if there's another reason to say the box on the right is more likely. I'm sure they are not a novel idea, but these are what I came up with. Our assumptions about how the balls were put into place affect our logic. We would assume you flung them with no intent of where they land. But what if you've practiced for years and have immaculate aim. The second would be unlikely. We would assume the box is level enough to keep the balls from gathering. We would assume the balls aren't magnetized. Also, our interpretation of the question affects our logic. Because I knew this video was about entropy, I answered correctly, but had I interpreted it in a less academic setting, I might answer based on average distance between the balls or some other aspect.
I just want to say how thankful I am and how much I look forward to each new video! "Does the intense gravity inside a black hole keep everything highly ordered, making the interior a "0" - entropy system?" "If nothing, not even light, can escape from a black hole, how is it possible for black holes to emit any kind of radiation? Where does Hawking radiation come from if energy can’t escape from inside the event horizon?"
Mahesh's videos are of a vital importance to 1) give gifted minds the ability to really finally understand important concepts they never could grasp staring at formulas in dull books. 2) intelligent minds the actual understanding behind the theories they thought they knew and now maybe also finally able to teach to others in a comprehensible fashion . 3) Maybe even the weak to normal minds to feel a spark of exitement or even more if it were only for his enthusiasm. That is a wide range of intellect served while most only address a certain group which makes such videos basically unwatchable for others no matter how hard they try. That is a great gift.
I thought I knew everything about entropy(the definition) this completely changes everything thank you so much Mahesh Sir Edit: thank you so much Mahesh Sir for your heart
Thank you Mahesh for your videos. I really enjoy your enthusiasm and excitement when you are breaking down complex concepts with intuitive examples. In this video, I want to point out a counter argument to your idea that information increases entropy, which you mentioned on 21:30 Your argument is that when there is no information, then everything is 0, which only has one possible configuration, and when there is information, then the combinations are 2^bits (in a binary storage for example). But I think it's actually the opposite. When no information is stored, the data is not 0, it's undefined, in which case any value can exist, making the combinations = 2^(capacity in bits). But when information is recorded, it is forced into a specific configuration. For example, if we're storing the position and velocity of individual particles, there is only one combination that is correct. So recording data _reduces_ entropy in the harddrive. This explains why over time data in physical devices starts to corrupt. The number of combinations starts to naturally increase, corrupting the original precise recorded data. So while I don't disagree that Maxwell's Demon does not decrease entropy, it doesn't make sense in the way you explained it. It cannot happen because it's recording data.
This was very good up to Maxwell's Daemon! It is not the information in the Daemon's brain that increases entropy because information is not a random arrangement (high entropy) of symbols! *Information is highly ordered (low entropy) not disordered!* what you are missing is a correct definition of information which is; *INFORMATION: Communication of meaning in a language* What increases entropy in the Daemon is the heat generated by the whole Daemon as required to perform the operation: eyes to see, processing to recognise the fast atoms, processing to calculate the movement of the arm, processing to move the arms, and finally store the information.
I'm a new subscriber here, so I have to say that this guy has a contagious sort of style that makes me smile. Hard to explain, or maybe not, but I'm attracted to it. Not in a geh way or anything, but strange anomaly all the same.
Welcome. Glad to hear that. That's the main motto of the channel - "Rediscover complex ideas intuitively, with a smile". So I am glad you could resonate :)
I searched your whole channel for this video of entropy 1 week ago cuz I didn't find intuition and rational explanation of this topic. But I knew Mahesh Shenoy is only one guy who really feels and understands physics with logic Thanks Dear Yara
One of the problems seems to be, that what we call "ordered" is most often made up in our brain. We mean with order: A simple pattern which is easy and fast to recognize. Take your example with the rooms. What is the difference. We consider the room at the left ordered because the pattern is eg. "all the books are in the bookshelf", while in the image on the right everything is distributed throughout the floor, we cannot see a pattern in the items. But eg. arrange those books in a checkerboard pattern, somehow your brain identifies this as ordered. What is interesting is, that in the milk example you reverse that feeling of "ordered". You consider the evenly distributed milk as more ordered, then the milk piling up in one corner. To me it seems that the simplest pattern possible would be the evenly distribution. In the example of the room we refuse to call that more ordered because the items are too large and too random as to be almost indistinguishable to each other and that is why we do not accept that pattern as applicable. (Randomness is another of those concepts which are much more complicated then one might think)
I think I have the same worry. What constitutes a given macrostate? It seems like it is up to us to describe a macrostate e.g. as "all the books are in the bookshelf" rather than "all the chemistry books are on the lower shelf and all the physics books are on the higher shelf". But the second description would be a description of a lower entropy state than the first description. So, it looks like the amount of entropy in a state dependent on how we choose to describe the state. And that seems like it could be used to formulate trivial counterexamples to the second law of thermodynamics. We could just pick suitable descriptions for that. E.g. we start with a description "all the books are in the room" which is a high entropy state description, and end with a description which specifies the exact location of each book in the room. 🤔
Wow, halfway through I thought, “Okay cool, I think I have a good understanding.” And then the entire second half of the video was even more mind blowing! So informative, all the way to the end. I love your way of explaining, and the way you talk to yourself as if you’re others: “First, Feynman says, ‘Calm down Mohesh’.” 😂
perfect timing on this vid for me. it took my professor 2 hours to increase the entropy in my brain the same amount that you did in 15 (I watched on x2 speed). thank you.
I was explaining entropy to wife with the "gas in room corner spreading out", "coffee", "laundry" examples, and that it is a just result/fact of statistics.. well your video came just in time, and the probabilities being demonstrated out is very helpful.. thanks for your service to humanity bruh
Please make more videos about entropy this is very interesting and transcendental. I think entropy does not necessarily generate life because as low entropy gets transformed into high entropy, it could result in a macro state that cannot support life. For example a planet really close to its star will get tons of low entropy which will get transformed into heat. However a planet at a temperature of thousands of Celsius will not generate life.
These videos are just amazing, been watching you from last 3 years on khan academy and discovered this channel last year only, i feel bad when i see videos getting lesser views and i feel like if you'll just stop posting if this continues, but still I'll keep watching your videos and keep supporting you, man you have really changed my understanding about science, hats off to you
As you were explaining this and you were explaining that the direction of time flows in the direction of entropy, I immediately thought about how gravity is a perception of the curvature of space and time, but then I have this contradictory position in my head that all electromagnetism and kinetic energy is explainable through newtons laws. The only exception to this seems to be gravity which so far as I know does not seem to participate in this chain of electromagnetic interactions of matter, but instead is a result of mass and the curvature of space-time. Gravity also seems to decrease entropy, at least locally. So it seems that gravity works in the opposite direction to entropy. I'm sure you'll show me how I'm wrong lol. But thank you so much for what you do. I hope you are finding success with the God-given talents you've been blessed with. We live in an amazing, mysterious, intricate machine which follows a programmed logic that people like you are slowly helping us to discover and understand. Thanks so much.
M. Sc. of chemistry here: A lecture in statistical thermodynamics opened my eyes as well. I highly recommend it and it gives a really good understanding! And btw: It's more mathematics and maybe a little bit physics than chemistry! 😂
Feynman Lectures always show us the reality and infallible logic behind complex and apparently abstract concepts that we used to take for truth through unfounded acceptance. Bring more Feynman Lectures plot-twists, Mahesh! *please also bring up pauli's exclusion principle, something tells me only you can make me really understand this, so don't disappoint me
You say that life is increasing entropy and thereby should be very common in the universe, but don't we also have to consider the chance that an ordered state of molecules first have to form in order for life to be possible? I mean, couldn't it be very unlikely that molecules arrange in a certain way, but WHEN they form in this way the evolution of life is very probable, because it increases entropy even more than a universe without life? Couldn't this be a solution for the Fermi paradox? Maybe the formation of ordered molecules that could form a structure which makes life possible is as unlikely as a spontaneous formation of gas-molecules in a chamber on only one side. Which like you showed here is nearly zero. But in an infinite huge universe after billions of years, maybe these states will form at some time. Which would make life very rare. But maybe I didn't understand something? Very cool content by the way, keep it on man!!!
What a fantastic video - I really enjoyed it. Plus it beautifully complements one I saw by Veritasium a while back to build on my understanding of entropy and the AoT.
Man you are telling stuff in such a good way, last time I checked some of your videos about general relativity or it was connected to that, and let me tell you, I read about it since i was a kid and fascinated about its implications, but actually one of your video was the last piece of puzzle I needed to fully understand its quirkiness.
Thank you for creating a video on exactly the question I had. Having seen multiple different videos on entropy from different content creators and think I grasp the concept of entropy and how it defines order versus disorder, but I had the same issue as you that intuitively low entropy seems like a more ordered state. Edit: my intuitive definition of order would be the lower number of statements I can use to describe the exact state of something. Like in your cleaned room example I can describe what is where in fewer sentences that in three disordered mess. Probably the same for the coffee and milk and mostly so when they are neatly separated at first. Probably because it is still possible to exhaustively describe/abstract away from these states by describing groups of molecules or atoms the way we perceive them (as books, walls, cupboard, in your room and as milk or coffee in the looting example). But that becomes equally easy for the coffee when fully blenden with the milk. As I am abstracting away I give up the attempt to describe the exact position in time of each of the atoms (which is not possible anyway in quantum physics 😊) when the universe reaches it highest level of entropy it will be relatively easy to describe it in abstract terms… even though there will be nothing left to describe it anymore, unless from a parallel universe 🙂
Wow. I had learned that entropy (one-directional over time) was related to probability, but I didn't *really* understand it until your explanation. Thank you! You're a great teacher.
What is good is you explain what order and disorder actually are but it would be nice if you defined them mathematically from Boltzmann's s = k.log W: *DISORDER: Probability of the macrostate = [0 < W/Wtot < 1]* *ORDER: Improbability of the macrostate = Wtot/W* Hence the true definition of entropy: *ENTROPY: Measure of Disorder* (Ref Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Technology) So we should not think we can discard the idea of disorder as many incorrectly do.
I've also read the Feynman lectures and I love your presentation in the video. I’ve always found the concept of entropy increasing during gas compression counterintuitive, until I had to rethink what a microstate actually represents (like kinetic energy or even bits of information). It used to confuse me, especially when thinking about the universe allows stars to form. For instance, collapsing hydrogen gas clouds into stars seems like it would decrease the number of microstates because the volume shrinks-but no, it actually increases entropy! Realizing that even gravity, this "force"(wink wink) born out of spacetime curvature, drives the universe toward higher entropy was a mind-blowing moment for me. It’s wild to think of gravity as a player in the cosmic quest for the second law of thermodynamics
What about when a measurement occurs? The probability wave collapses to a very localized spot. Isn’t that a less likely microstate of position? I have no idea
@@austinlincoln3414 I think when you make a measurement, the quantum particle's wave function collapses resulting in low microstate but since the detector is involved, we need to consider the particle and the detector as closed system. When we do that we observe that the photon from the detector now has more kinetic energy than before. The quantum particle may go to low microstate but the photon gains more microstates which increases the overall system's entropy
I have a vision of entropy based on gas diffusion similar to your depiction of 10 balls in the 10, 20 and 40 microstate system. But rather than computing the probabilities for each to determine the likely time line when the container size increases, consider the motion of each ball having equal chance of moving left or right. So at the interface between the empty and occupied region of the container half the balls will move left (further into occupied region) and half to the right. Thus spreading out into unoccupied region of the container. Applying this principle throughout the container at increasing time steps will eventually spread out the balls evenly throughout the containner. This is the basis of deriving the diffusion equation and to seems to have roots in entropy on a microscopic scale.
But i didnt understood why oil is not mixing with water??? Please clear my doubt and please please make more videos like this, your way of thinking is most extraordinary ❤❤❤ your my favourite teacher❤
I’m not a physicist or a chemist, but I believe the scenario you are describing is more complex than the examples in the video. One of the assumptions being made in his examples is that the gas or liquid molecules don’t really interact with each other except for taking up physical space. Oil and water molecules, however, repel each other, so they tend to line up in a way that minimizes the surface area of contact between the two. Once they are in a state where they are separate, it takes a lot of kinetic energy for, say, a water molecule to force its way past the natural repulsion of the oil molecules. This, I think, would be a less likely arrangement of the kinetic energy in the system. In other words, there are lot more micro states where the kinetic energy is insufficient and the molecules stay separated.
Quick update: I ran this by ChatGPT and its opinion was that it was more to do with water liking to connect with itself via hydrogen bonds. Which is why I suspect we would get a better explanation from an actual chemist.
Just a small note. The arrow of time does comes from physics. The microstates are physics rules basically and we just use stats to average over the large numbers that would make the macrostates.
A fantastic intuitive explanation which is truly enlightening. I did have one quick thought / query about the segment at the end of the video, talking about entropy and life at the planetary scale. The reasoning here seems to be that A. life accelerates the increase in entropy, and B. this makes evolution of life likely. I'm particularly curious about B ... While the second law tells us entropy must increase, I think it's silent on how rapidly this should happen. Therefore I'm not sure if we can say that the laws of physics favour systems / processes that cause entropy to increase more quickly? I may well be missing something though, in which case please forgive my ignorance :)
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You are one of the best ones out there . I am in class 9 and i love ypur explanations . Please try one on some things like quantum string theory or forces of nature or something new in chemistry or physics
7:21 isn't she still in space??
why is this showing 7days ago when the video is uploaded 1 hours ago
How about using oil and water mixture instead of coffee and milk?
How will we make sense of entropy here
One of the common themes I like most in many of your videos is that you make the insights of Feynman in his lectures clear and accessible to a modern audience. Great work !
This is one of the best science communication channels out there. The science is rigorous and grounded, and it’s explained in an intuitive way without confusing the audience with fancy jargon. Every time I watch a video, I come away with a deeper understanding, and the sheer passion with which he talks about these concepts is contagious. Please don’t ever stop making videos!!!
Yeah, the only request is to make videos for us🥹🥹.
I approve of this message.
100% agree. Like this guy is the goat
"when you learn something new, try to critique it, try to break it, and see what your logical flaw is, because that's how you deepen your understanding" is one of the most powerful phrases i've ever heard out of an educator. Beautifully said, Mahesh!
Oh boy please never stop posting these informational videos that often our teachers just let go under the rug. They just want us to memorize and here you are, the Messiah, reviving my curiosity 😂. Thank you very much. I just came across this entropy thing in thermodynamics and well I can solve questions but I understand nothing about it. I am very confident now I will know after seeing your video. Thanks again
Bro, explain pauli exclusion principle next... Why bosons are symmetric and stay together and why electrons are asymmetric and can't occupy same quantum state.
Yes please 😊
Yes, this is a base of quantum mechanics.
@@lalit-_- yeah
Yep
Indeed. That's important, and also hard to even describe in some ways.
I have a degree and PhD in chemistry and your explanation of entropy is the best I have come across. Bravo! 👍
I thought I understood things. Watching your videos has helped me understand that I did, but not at the level that I thought I did. This has really helped me have some "ah, that is the part that I was missing!" moments, and I adore that. Great stuff, and I love your energy. I wish you much success.
Everyone has this " yeah I know this" phase
And soon it evolves into "I don't know a shit" phase
@@priyank5161 more like a cycle than single phases
You, Sir, just increased the entropy of my brain like crazy and that of everyone, collectively, exponentially.
I have a bachelors in physics and I didn’t realize just how surface level my understanding of entropy was till I watched this video. You have a beautiful way of explaining physics
Damn dude. I have struggled for so long with trying to have a more intuitive understanding of what is really being described by the term entropy. I have read books and watched countless videos on it. I have sat around thinking about it for hours. And here you made it so simple and so intuitive and did it in such a short amount of time. I could literally feel the lightbulb go off in my head. It's like a burden has been lifted...lol. You have a real gift. Thank you!
He was kind of off the mark when he talked about irreversibility, as diffusing milk is theoretically reversible and respects T-symmetry. Other than that, he did a really good job.
This explains why I'm compelled to watch more physics videos, the more information in my head means higher entropy
In order to use arrangements probabilities, the positions must be independent from each other. But this not the case here 12:55 because atoms collide with each other so they are not interindependant. So the probability is not 0.02% (0.18/850) but actually lower because collisions maximizes the distance between atoms. (Hence low temperature creates solids)
Your enthusiasm is contagious. I have been grappling with the concept of entropy for quite a few years. This really helped!
I clicked faster than the speed of light
I was at speed of sound in solid medium
And thereafter collapsed into a black hole.
Me too
Doesn't seem like you've got infinite energy. Sorry I can't agree with you 🤣
Speed of light doesn't click
As an electrophysiologist interested in biophysics, I've always found the diffusion phenomenon fascinating. I love how Schrödinger put it in his book "What is life" :
"Imagine a vessel filled with a fluid, say water, with a small amount of some coloured substance dissolved in it, say potassium permanganate, not in uniform concentration, but rather as in Fig. 4, where the dots indicate the molecules of the dissolved substance (permanganate) and the concentration diminishes from left to right. If you leave this system alone a very slow process of 'diffusion' sets in, the permanganate spreading in the direction from left to right, that is, from the places of higher concentration towards the places of lower concentration, until it is equally distributed through the water.
The remarkable thing about this rather simple and apparently not particularly interesting process is that it is in no way due, as one might think, to any tendency or force driving the permanganate molecules away from the crowded region to the less crowded one, like the population of a country spreading to those parts where there is more elbow-room. Nothing of the sort happens with our permanganate molecules. Everyone of them behaves quite independently of all the others, which it
very seldom meets. Everyone of them, whether in a crowded region or in an empty one, suffers the same fate of being
continually knocked about by the impacts of the water molecules and thereby gradually moving on in an unpredictable direction - sometimes towards the higher, sometimes towards the lower, concentrations, sometimes obliquely. The kind of motion it performs has often been compared with that of a blindfolded person on a large surface imbued with a certain desire of 'walking', but without any preference for any particular direction, and so changing his line continuously. That this random walk of the permanganate molecules, the same for all of them, should yet produce a regular flow towards the smaller concentration and ultimately make for uniformity of distribution, is at first sight perplexing - but only at first sight. If you contemplate in Fig. 4 thin slices of approximately constant concentration, the permanganate molecules which in a given moment are contained in a
particular slice will, by their random walk, it is true, be carried with equal probability to the right or to the left. But precisely in consequence of this, a plane separating two neighbouring slices will be crossed by more molecules coming from the left than in the opposite direction, simply because to the left there are more molecules engaged in random walk than there are to the right. And as long as that is so the balance will show up as a regular flow from left to right, until a uniform distribution is reached."
Just beautiful.
Thanks for all of your work Mahesh!
Hey doc.. You treat heart diseases right?
@FreakGUY-007 No sir. I do research in pancreatic beta-cells. I'm a biologist.
@@roberttikens4983 Oh my bad.. Just wanted to ask something about my grandpa's heart condition..
Anyways thank you for replying 👍
@@FreakGUY-007 you're welcolme! Sorry to not be able to help :/
@@FreakGUY-007 What question did you have?
Imagine struggling with entropy ,someone find your video. Highly relieved.❤
There is one problem with the example about the balls in the slots.
It assumes that balls will take a random position at any point in time.
Assuming that each ball will pick an initial cardinal direction to move when the space is opened then they could try to move into the wall. Since they can't move then they will remain in place. Same with the other balls if they try to move in a space that is occupied.
That means some patterns are more likely that others as those patterns would be repeated in the set.
So not every single pattern is just as likely.
Also, if we assume each ball starts with an amount of energy, that energy slightly dissipates every time it has an interaction with another ball or the wall.
Also, each ball will transfer it's energy to the other ball it comes in contact with.
This means the patterns cannot be random and would be deterministic. Some patterns are more likely than others.
So, in the end, when all meaningful energy is lost in the system, we are more likely to see a pattern of balls that are evenly spread throughout the space than to see them clustered in a corner.
That's why when gas fills a chamber, it spreads throughout the chamber and not remaining or rearranging at any point to stick into a corner because that would require more energy to put it there and then more energy to negate the new high energy state that it would be in.
High Energy = Low Entropy
Low Energy = High Entropy
Please never stop posting such content. Love you for this ❤
Your videos are genuinely my favourite format for this kind of content. Also your t shirt is Fire!
please sir, bhaiya, anna , please never stop making these kind of videos, its insipiring and very informative for students those who are passionate about science(physics and chem mainly)
Sir, you are the best in explaining complicated subjects in a very easy and understandable way. Thank you 🙏
Hi, I had several questions
18:37 Q1 Why does the gas heat up? What phenomenon causes the gas to heat up when compressed?
22:01 Q2 What if the demon forgets all the information? Does it mean entropy decreased?
Q3 When you stretch a rubber band it heats up slightly
They say it's coz the molecules become less chaotic and become straight and arranged. And as entropy cant decrease it heats up
But i can't understand why would a molecule decide to heat up... I mean it doesn't have a conscience to follow the laws of physics...
Q1: The piston applies a force to the gas before stopping. When the piston stops, what happens to the work done (i.e the energy) by the piston?
Work is done on the molecules, which becomes kinetic energy. And while this kinetic energy can be distributed in many different ways (hence high entropy), the gas as a whole has a higher average kinetic energy.
Temperature is a macro property that corresponds to the the average kinetic energy. So if there is a higher average kinetic energy, then temperature will increase.
Q2: If the demon forgets then there is some outside process that flips the 1s into 0s such that the number of microstates reduce.
We end up having a similar to the fridge, where you have to consider the entire system. If the demon is a computer system for example, then forgetting might be due to cosmic rays hitting the brain, or energy leakage as heat into the surrounding, or physical damage to the brain. In all these cases, the entropy increases, since demon + box of molecules + forgetting process will have more microstates after the demon forgets than before the demon forgets.
Q3: This is similar to Q1. When gou stretch a rubber band, it gets thinner, and molecules get aligned into an "ordered" structure. "Ordered" is in quotes because like what the video said, being in a nicely arranged microstate isnt more likely than a disordered microstate. What matters is the number of microstates available.
Now your hands also apply work to pull the rubber band apart. Where does the energy from your pulling go to? Here it becomes kinetic energy in molecules to align the molecules and make then vibrate more. (Imagine pulling a slack rope tight and how it starts to vibrate like a guitar string when you do)
And since temperature is the average kinetic energy, the rubber band heats up.
1) considering an adiabatic system. no heat exchanged) during compression, work is done on the gas, the energy is absorbed by the gas particles, dW=dU in dt time interval energy absorbed "dU" = nCvdT is >0 hence dT>0 hence temp increases.
2)the information while going into the demons brain was increasing entropy, forgetting the information is another task
3) nature decided what happens, we can only accept and study it
@@nukeeverything1802 what happens if all available microstates in maxwells demons memory are 1 then it has low entropy cause there is only one state possible?
@@nukeeverything1802 say the information is stored in cells surrounded by a dispersed hot gas, when that gas hits the cells, they turn into 0s.
The demon will forget automatically without the entropy increasing because the gas is already at maximum entropy.
No outside energy is used.
I head read many physics books throughout my life and I'm surprised I'm still learning something new from you! You are a great science communicator, and please, never stop making these!
Best explanation I ever heard... liked and subscribed. John, in the UK
A huge huge yes Mahesh sir!!!!! ✨✨✨🔥 We would love to see more of your videos on such topics. Entropy with Black Holes and Holographic principle sound awesome. The internet is full of videos that either just talk speculatively or dive deep into the maths.
But we miss the intuition! It would be heartwarming and enlightening to have a delicacy (as always), from you on the topics.....❤
Pleeeeease increase my brain's entropy and do more videos about all the entropy stuff! 🙏
Just looking at the first example with coffee and cream (I haven't even watched the rest of the video yet), this is the difference between entropy of a system and the Kolmogorov complexity of the large-scale features of that system. Essentially, the features of the half-mixed coffee-and-cream that are large enough for us to see are complicated and difficult to describe, while the homogeneous mixture is very easy to describe on our scale.
But trying to describe the *exact* state of the system, the position of each molecule of fat and caffeine and water and sugar is easier in the half-mixed case. And it is this more small-scale Kolmogorov complexity that's more closely tied to entropy.
(Kolmogorov complexity is basically "How many words do you need to describe the thing?" For the macroscopic state of the fully mixed coffee, that basically amounts to listing a few concentrations and a temperature, so relatively low complexity. For the half-mixed, you have to describe the shape of the main boundary between cream and coffee, and you probably have to describe regions of different mixing ratios. All in all a much longer description is needed.)
You are such a breeze to my life. I spend days without sleep thinking about this stuff. Your explanations are such a relief to my questioning brain. I may be an extreme case of over thinker about reality itself, but your channel is the answer I am seeking all along. Thank you is such a small word. You have no idea how much peace you have brought into my life. 🙏🏻
I just discovered your channel. This was the best explanation and visual representations for entropy that I've ever seen. I've subscribed. Thank you!
Phenomenal explanation, Mahesh. One error in the advertisement for Ground News, though. The articles about the hospitalized astronaut are not about Sunita Williams. She is *still* stuck in space -- and her health is at risk. But the articles about hospitalized astronauts are about another, unnamed astronaut who were taken to hospital after landing.
I am so glad I found your channel, your style and way of rediscovering really helps me understand - thank you!
Dios mío, I've just subscribed. I studied chemical engineering 'til 5th year, and these questions and topics have always been on my mind. Entropy has always been a topic that fascinated me deeply, but I always thought I didn't quite get it. I quit studying this career because I learned about myself that I did not care about applying this stuff to industrial growth, and I'd rather think and philosophize about it, but that's a different story. Your videos made me want to get back to this. Get back to science, to question everything. Thank you for that. Greetings from Argentina.
The way you explain the complexities of a topic. The way the idea originated in the authors mind and how he tackled it gives an intuitive way for us to re-learn our own thinking process that we long lost since school times, and thats what makes your videos more fun and intuitive to watch. You bring joy to learning and thats truly an immense talent and hardwork you put in.
Thank you for all your videos. Waiting for more.
Your enthusiasm is infectious! I wish I had teachers like you when I was a physics grad student in Göttingen. I dropped out due to falling behind and depression. I've moved on to a career in CS, but I still love physics.
The notification made me so excited!!
I was studying about this recently and yes understood more than I did before but obviously lesser than I should....and wondered if you've made a video on this!!
Now I'll save this for tomorrow morning to start off the day the right way but even before watching the video I know this is greatand & rare high quality physics content so massive.
THANK YOU!!
Mahesh, some further points about Entropy to consider:
1. Is a Microstate merely positional? Presumably not if Temperature increases number of Microstates. Momentum values now separate microstates also.
2. Classically we can measure (position) to arbitrary accuracy. So again what is a Microstate?
Presumably a range of numbers/positions per microstate. So what is the physical significance of these regions, if any? Do they depend on the measuring apparatus, for example?
It has been argued that classical physics never resolved these issues, but that the Planck volumes fixed this.
3. Also why does the Maxwell Demon brain get filled up with all that data? Once it has done a sorting task, cannot it just forget the data and move onto the next molecule? I think that the answer to this is that deleting data generates Entropy, but this could be explained further.
Interesting questions
At 18:50 just nailed it. That was a hit on the nail point of view❤❤❤❤
In last 2 minutes, I am really feeling greatful to god because I clicked this video to watch.
Awesome as always 😃🤯 Your enthusiasm is contagious and I feel as if I drunk lots of irreversible latte macchiato.
Your statistics example with the micro states also illustrates why playing the lottery is not really a good idea.
Looking forward to your grasp on the Fermi Paradox (which is disturbing) and all the juicy stuff you mentioned!
Kudos
This is why I subscribe to you! Entropy was difficult for me to understand in school but this has helped me build an intuition about it.
I love your videos. Takes topics that we’ve all heard of, huge things, and breaks them down into understandable bites until we can digest all of it. Bravo my man
You are one of the best educational channels on this platform. Your enthusiasm and ability to explain complicated (for me) ideas in an understandable way is greatly appreciated. Hopefully your channel will continue to grow.
I also made the mistake of thinking it was a measurement of order and disorder because the most classic examples are the tidy room and the sand castle. After this video I finally grasped what entropy truly is. And for that I thank you!
just want to say i really appreciate this style of clickbait title, not least because the videos do actually frame the info as "look what i learned!"
Always happy to see a video that will change my way of thinking about physics, thank you Mahesh
I'm glad more people are finally talking about this, from the moment I learned about entropy as part of my IB chemistry, I knew that something was philosophically off-putting
Love your t-shirt. I need one of those. You have a real gift as a teacher. Thanks for making your vids
Great video. I feel I understand entropy much more now.
Thinking back to the question of the balls thrown into the box, I started asking myself if there's another reason to say the box on the right is more likely. I'm sure they are not a novel idea, but these are what I came up with.
Our assumptions about how the balls were put into place affect our logic.
We would assume you flung them with no intent of where they land. But what if you've practiced for years and have immaculate aim. The second would be unlikely.
We would assume the box is level enough to keep the balls from gathering.
We would assume the balls aren't magnetized.
Also, our interpretation of the question affects our logic.
Because I knew this video was about entropy, I answered correctly, but had I interpreted it in a less academic setting, I might answer based on average distance between the balls or some other aspect.
I just want to say how thankful I am and how much I look forward to each new video!
"Does the intense gravity inside a black hole keep everything highly ordered, making the interior a "0" - entropy system?"
"If nothing, not even light, can escape from a black hole, how is it possible for black holes to emit any kind of radiation? Where does Hawking radiation come from if energy can’t escape from inside the event horizon?"
Mahesh's videos are of a vital importance to 1) give gifted minds the ability to really finally understand important concepts they never could grasp staring at formulas in dull books. 2) intelligent minds the actual understanding behind the theories they thought they knew and now maybe also finally able to teach to others in a comprehensible fashion . 3) Maybe even the weak to normal minds to feel a spark of exitement or even more if it were only for his enthusiasm. That is a wide range of intellect served while most only address a certain group which makes such videos basically unwatchable for others no matter how hard they try. That is a great gift.
I studied this 30+ years ago and stumbling on your videos has been wonderful, so better explained than the books I used
I thought I knew everything about entropy(the definition) this completely changes everything thank you so much Mahesh Sir
Edit: thank you so much Mahesh Sir for your heart
Thank you Mahesh for your videos. I really enjoy your enthusiasm and excitement when you are breaking down complex concepts with intuitive examples.
In this video, I want to point out a counter argument to your idea that information increases entropy, which you mentioned on 21:30
Your argument is that when there is no information, then everything is 0, which only has one possible configuration, and when there is information, then the combinations are 2^bits (in a binary storage for example). But I think it's actually the opposite. When no information is stored, the data is not 0, it's undefined, in which case any value can exist, making the combinations = 2^(capacity in bits). But when information is recorded, it is forced into a specific configuration. For example, if we're storing the position and velocity of individual particles, there is only one combination that is correct. So recording data _reduces_ entropy in the harddrive. This explains why over time data in physical devices starts to corrupt. The number of combinations starts to naturally increase, corrupting the original precise recorded data. So while I don't disagree that Maxwell's Demon does not decrease entropy, it doesn't make sense in the way you explained it. It cannot happen because it's recording data.
This was very good up to Maxwell's Daemon!
It is not the information in the Daemon's brain that increases entropy because information is not a random arrangement (high entropy) of symbols! *Information is highly ordered (low entropy) not disordered!* what you are missing is a correct definition of information which is;
*INFORMATION: Communication of meaning in a language*
What increases entropy in the Daemon is the heat generated by the whole Daemon as required to perform the operation: eyes to see, processing to recognise the fast atoms, processing to calculate the movement of the arm, processing to move the arms, and finally store the information.
I'm a new subscriber here, so I have to say that this guy has a contagious sort of style that makes me smile. Hard to explain, or maybe not, but I'm attracted to it. Not in a geh way or anything, but strange anomaly all the same.
Welcome. Glad to hear that. That's the main motto of the channel - "Rediscover complex ideas intuitively, with a smile". So I am glad you could resonate :)
I searched your whole channel for this video of entropy 1 week ago cuz I didn't find intuition and rational explanation of this topic.
But I knew Mahesh Shenoy is only one guy who really feels and understands physics with logic
Thanks Dear Yara
One of the problems seems to be, that what we call "ordered" is most often made up in our brain. We mean with order: A simple pattern which is easy and fast to recognize.
Take your example with the rooms. What is the difference.
We consider the room at the left ordered because the pattern is eg. "all the books are in the bookshelf", while in the image on the right everything is distributed throughout the floor, we cannot see a pattern in the items. But eg. arrange those books in a checkerboard pattern, somehow your brain identifies this as ordered.
What is interesting is, that in the milk example you reverse that feeling of "ordered". You consider the evenly distributed milk as more ordered, then the milk piling up in one corner. To me it seems that the simplest pattern possible would be the evenly distribution. In the example of the room we refuse to call that more ordered because the items are too large and too random as to be almost indistinguishable to each other and that is why we do not accept that pattern as applicable.
(Randomness is another of those concepts which are much more complicated then one might think)
Thank you for your interesting thoughts
I think I have the same worry. What constitutes a given macrostate? It seems like it is up to us to describe a macrostate e.g. as "all the books are in the bookshelf" rather than "all the chemistry books are on the lower shelf and all the physics books are on the higher shelf". But the second description would be a description of a lower entropy state than the first description. So, it looks like the amount of entropy in a state dependent on how we choose to describe the state. And that seems like it could be used to formulate trivial counterexamples to the second law of thermodynamics. We could just pick suitable descriptions for that. E.g. we start with a description "all the books are in the room" which is a high entropy state description, and end with a description which specifies the exact location of each book in the room. 🤔
Hello sir. I was just thinking about entropy last day and here I am. 2 minutes into the video and I am already in!
Wow, halfway through I thought, “Okay cool, I think I have a good understanding.” And then the entire second half of the video was even more mind blowing! So informative, all the way to the end. I love your way of explaining, and the way you talk to yourself as if you’re others: “First, Feynman says, ‘Calm down Mohesh’.” 😂
I really enjoyed watching this video. Best explainations on the web 👌
perfect timing on this vid for me. it took my professor 2 hours to increase the entropy in my brain the same amount that you did in 15 (I watched on x2 speed). thank you.
I was explaining entropy to wife with the "gas in room corner spreading out", "coffee", "laundry" examples, and that it is a just result/fact of statistics.. well your video came just in time, and the probabilities being demonstrated out is very helpful.. thanks for your service to humanity bruh
Bro, your enthusiasm makes it so much fun to learn!
The best explanation i could ever get from any other sources. Keep it up bro.
Please make more videos about entropy this is very interesting and transcendental.
I think entropy does not necessarily generate life because as low entropy gets transformed into high entropy, it could result in a macro state that cannot support life.
For example a planet really close to its star will get tons of low entropy which will get transformed into heat. However a planet at a temperature of thousands of Celsius will not generate life.
Hi Mahesh, I am new fan but I have been loving binging all your content ❤
These videos are just amazing, been watching you from last 3 years on khan academy and discovered this channel last year only, i feel bad when i see videos getting lesser views and i feel like if you'll just stop posting if this continues, but still I'll keep watching your videos and keep supporting you, man you have really changed my understanding about science, hats off to you
As you were explaining this and you were explaining that the direction of time flows in the direction of entropy, I immediately thought about how gravity is a perception of the curvature of space and time, but then I have this contradictory position in my head that all electromagnetism and kinetic energy is explainable through newtons laws. The only exception to this seems to be gravity which so far as I know does not seem to participate in this chain of electromagnetic interactions of matter, but instead is a result of mass and the curvature of space-time. Gravity also seems to decrease entropy, at least locally. So it seems that gravity works in the opposite direction to entropy. I'm sure you'll show me how I'm wrong lol. But thank you so much for what you do. I hope you are finding success with the God-given talents you've been blessed with. We live in an amazing, mysterious, intricate machine which follows a programmed logic that people like you are slowly helping us to discover and understand.
Thanks so much.
Wow, the timing is so good..I was going through entropy this sem, and has started this topic yesterday and tada..got the video
M. Sc. of chemistry here: A lecture in statistical thermodynamics opened my eyes as well. I highly recommend it and it gives a really good understanding! And btw: It's more mathematics and maybe a little bit physics than chemistry! 😂
This is one of the very best explanation of concept of Entropy, thank you very much Mahesh.
Feynman Lectures always show us the reality and infallible logic behind complex and apparently abstract concepts that we used to take for truth through unfounded acceptance. Bring more Feynman Lectures plot-twists, Mahesh!
*please also bring up pauli's exclusion principle, something tells me only you can make me really understand this, so don't disappoint me
Great going Mahesh! You have increased the entropy of my love for Physics. Thank you for being a low entropy source🎉.
You are a fabulous educator. Please don't stop
You say that life is increasing entropy and thereby should be very common in the universe, but don't we also have to consider the chance that an ordered state of molecules first have to form in order for life to be possible?
I mean, couldn't it be very unlikely that molecules arrange in a certain way, but WHEN they form in this way the evolution of life is very probable, because it increases entropy even more than a universe without life?
Couldn't this be a solution for the Fermi paradox?
Maybe the formation of ordered molecules that could form a structure which makes life possible is as unlikely as a spontaneous formation of gas-molecules in a chamber on only one side. Which like you showed here is nearly zero. But in an infinite huge universe after billions of years, maybe these states will form at some time. Which would make life very rare.
But maybe I didn't understand something?
Very cool content by the way, keep it on man!!!
I was smiling ear to ear with the probability example.
Great video Maheshanna
"Probablity" is so much more efficient and fun to say lol, great video as always!
What a fantastic video - I really enjoyed it. Plus it beautifully complements one I saw by Veritasium a while back to build on my understanding of entropy and the AoT.
Man you are telling stuff in such a good way, last time I checked some of your videos about general relativity or it was connected to that, and let me tell you, I read about it since i was a kid and fascinated about its implications, but actually one of your video was the last piece of puzzle I needed to fully understand its quirkiness.
Thank you for creating a video on exactly the question I had. Having seen multiple different videos on entropy from different content creators and think I grasp the concept of entropy and how it defines order versus disorder, but I had the same issue as you that intuitively low entropy seems like a more ordered state. Edit: my intuitive definition of order would be the lower number of statements I can use to describe the exact state of something. Like in your cleaned room example I can describe what is where in fewer sentences that in three disordered mess. Probably the same for the coffee and milk and mostly so when they are neatly separated at first. Probably because it is still possible to exhaustively describe/abstract away from these states by describing groups of molecules or atoms the way we perceive them (as books, walls, cupboard, in your room and as milk or coffee in the looting example). But that becomes equally easy for the coffee when fully blenden with the milk. As I am abstracting away I give up the attempt to describe the exact position in time of each of the atoms (which is not possible anyway in quantum physics 😊) when the universe reaches it highest level of entropy it will be relatively easy to describe it in abstract terms… even though there will be nothing left to describe it anymore, unless from a parallel universe 🙂
Your videos are SO GOOD!
Wow. I had learned that entropy (one-directional over time) was related to probability, but I didn't *really* understand it until your explanation. Thank you! You're a great teacher.
Wow I just love watching your video, as you show so much love to physics and explain it in an instinctive way.
Love your content
Love your passion
Could you do a video on Pauli’s exclusion principle
After veritasium , this is one of the best videos on entropy... capturing all the ways to think about entropy
What is good is you explain what order and disorder actually are but it would be nice if you defined them mathematically from Boltzmann's s = k.log W:
*DISORDER: Probability of the macrostate = [0 < W/Wtot < 1]*
*ORDER: Improbability of the macrostate = Wtot/W*
Hence the true definition of entropy:
*ENTROPY: Measure of Disorder* (Ref Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Technology)
So we should not think we can discard the idea of disorder as many incorrectly do.
I've also read the Feynman lectures and I love your presentation in the video. I’ve always found the concept of entropy increasing during gas compression counterintuitive, until I had to rethink what a microstate actually represents (like kinetic energy or even bits of information). It used to confuse me, especially when thinking about the universe allows stars to form. For instance, collapsing hydrogen gas clouds into stars seems like it would decrease the number of microstates because the volume shrinks-but no, it actually increases entropy! Realizing that even gravity, this "force"(wink wink) born out of spacetime curvature, drives the universe toward higher entropy was a mind-blowing moment for me. It’s wild to think of gravity as a player in the cosmic quest for the second law of thermodynamics
i love your explanations Mahesh, always great content!
Been waiting for this one for a long time and it's as clarifying as I hoped! Yes, please please please, more on entropy.
Right when I was struggling to grasp entropy in my thermodynamics class! Thank you, Mahesh!!
Even at the quantum scale, entropy is increasing since a particle is spread out with more or less probabilities
What about when a measurement occurs? The probability wave collapses to a very localized spot. Isn’t that a less likely microstate of position? I have no idea
@@austinlincoln3414 I think when you make a measurement, the quantum particle's wave function collapses resulting in low microstate but since the detector is involved, we need to consider the particle and the detector as closed system. When we do that we observe that the photon from the detector now has more kinetic energy than before. The quantum particle may go to low microstate but the photon gains more microstates which increases the overall system's entropy
Hats off to Mahesh & R Feynman.
Indeed a great job. I wish I had a teacher like you in my school days.
I have tears in my eyes and smile in my face when I finished this, extraordinary sir ❤
I have a vision of entropy based on gas diffusion similar to your depiction of 10 balls in the 10, 20 and 40 microstate system. But rather than computing the probabilities for each to determine the likely time line when the container size increases, consider the motion of each ball having equal chance of moving left or right. So at the interface between the empty and occupied region of the container half the balls will move left (further into occupied region) and half to the right. Thus spreading out into unoccupied region of the container. Applying this principle throughout the container at increasing time steps will eventually spread out the balls evenly throughout the containner. This is the basis of deriving the diffusion equation and to seems to have roots in entropy on a microscopic scale.
Your passion is contagious my man
But i didnt understood why oil is not mixing with water??? Please clear my doubt and please please make more videos like this, your way of thinking is most extraordinary ❤❤❤ your my favourite teacher❤
I’m not a physicist or a chemist, but I believe the scenario you are describing is more complex than the examples in the video. One of the assumptions being made in his examples is that the gas or liquid molecules don’t really interact with each other except for taking up physical space. Oil and water molecules, however, repel each other, so they tend to line up in a way that minimizes the surface area of contact between the two. Once they are in a state where they are separate, it takes a lot of kinetic energy for, say, a water molecule to force its way past the natural repulsion of the oil molecules. This, I think, would be a less likely arrangement of the kinetic energy in the system. In other words, there are lot more micro states where the kinetic energy is insufficient and the molecules stay separated.
Quick update: I ran this by ChatGPT and its opinion was that it was more to do with water liking to connect with itself via hydrogen bonds. Which is why I suspect we would get a better explanation from an actual chemist.
Just a small note. The arrow of time does comes from physics. The microstates are physics rules basically and we just use stats to average over the large numbers that would make the macrostates.
A fantastic intuitive explanation which is truly enlightening.
I did have one quick thought / query about the segment at the end of the video, talking about entropy and life at the planetary scale. The reasoning here seems to be that
A. life accelerates the increase in entropy, and
B. this makes evolution of life likely.
I'm particularly curious about B ... While the second law tells us entropy must increase, I think it's silent on how rapidly this should happen. Therefore I'm not sure if we can say that the laws of physics favour systems / processes that cause entropy to increase more quickly? I may well be missing something though, in which case please forgive my ignorance :)
I mentioned you yesterday on Veritasium’s channel as a one of my favorites because your focus on the intuitive.
bruh these Feynman's lectures seems goated !
Love your videos. Your enthusiasm for physics is so infectious ❤