1548 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 84 No. 9 September 2007 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org Entropy change is categorized in some prominent general chemistry textbooks as being either positional (configurational) or thermal. Positional entropy focuses on the number of positions in space that can be occupied by the molecules of a system. Then, to the extent that more positions exist after a process ...

Free energy is the key quantity to describe the thermodynamics of biological systems. In this perspective we consider the calculation of free energy, enthalpy and entropy from end-point molecular dynamics simulations. Since the enthalpy may be calculated as the ensemble average over equilibrated simulation snapshots the difficulties related to free energy calculation are ultimately related to t...

Considering that the movements of complex system entities take place on continuous, but non-differentiable, curves, concepts, like non-differentiable entropy, informational non-differentiable entropy and informational non-differentiable energy, are introduced. First of all, the dynamics equations of the complex system entities (Schrödinger-type or fractal hydrodynamic-type) are obtained. The la...

We report a model-independent measurement of the entropy, energy, and critical temperature of a degenerate, strongly interacting Fermi gas of atoms. The total energy is determined from the mean square cloud size in the strongly interacting regime, where the gas exhibits universal behavior. The entropy is measured by sweeping a bias magnetic field to adiabatically tune the gas from the strongly ...

Entanglement entropy is often speculated as a strong candidate for the origin of the black-hole entropy. To judge whether this speculation is true or not, it is effective to investigate the whole structure of thermodynamics obtained from the entanglement entropy, rather than just to examine the apparent structure of the entropy alone or to compare it with that of the black hole entropy. It is b...

We explore the consequences of a deterministic microscopic thermostat-reservoir contact mechanism for hard disks where the collision rule at the boundary is modified. Numerical evidence and theoretical argument is given that suggests that an energy balance is achieved for a system of hard disks in contact with two reservoirs at equal temperatures. This system however produces entropy near the t...

We prove that statistical information theoretic quantities, such as information entropy, cannot generally be interrelated with the lower limit of energy dissipation during information erasure. We also point out that, in deterministic and error-free computers, the information entropy of memories does not change during erasure because its value is always zero. On the other hand, for information-t...

A generally relativistic theory of thermodynamics is developed, based on four main physical principles: heat is a local form of energy, therefore described by a thermal energy tensor; conservation of heat, or the local first law, equivalent to conservation of mass; entropy is a local current; and non-destruction of entropy, or the local second law. A fluid is defined by the thermostatic energy ...

The effect of gravity upon changes of the entropy of a gravity-dominated system is discussed. In a universe dominated by vacuum energy, gravity is repulsive, and there is accelerated expansion. Furthermore, inhomogeneities are inflated and the universe approaches a state of thermal equilibrium. The difference between the evolution of the cosmic entropy in a co-moving volume in an inflationary e...

Studies of the X-ray surface brightness profiles of clusters, coupled with theoretical considerations, suggest that the breaking of self-similarity in the hot gas results from an ‘entropy floor’, established by some heating process, which affects the structure of the intracluster gas strongly in lower mass systems. By fitting analytical models for the radial variation in gas density and tempera...