Entropy

Have you ever played a game of checkers? When you begin the game, the playing pieces are all in order. Once the game begins, you and your opponent add disorder to the arrangement of the pieces by moving them. Something similar happens with chemical reactions. Some reactions start out organized and end up less organized. Other reactions begin the exact opposite of the checkers example. They begin with a high amount of disorder and end up with organized products. The study of the disorder of reactions is known as entropy. In this topic, you will explore the disorder of a system while looking at how matter is organized in chemical reactions.

Essential Question

• How is matter organized?