What is Entropy?

entropy / en-truh-pee / n. Physics a measure of disorder indicating the amount of energy that, rather than being concentrated, has become more evenly distributed and so cannot be used to do work (within a particular system, or in the universe as a whole). - The Australian OXFORD PAPERBACK DICTIONARY, Oxford University Press.

Hot gas has high entropy as its molecules move randomly at high speed. Entropy decreases as the temperature falls. The concept of entropy also occurs in information theory, where it relates to the capacity of a communications channel to carry information.

Chaos is a state of high entropy. But orderly, well behaved systems (for example, bug-free computer systems) can be thought of as having low entropy and are therefore able to do useful work (for example, reliably store and transfer information).

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