Yirmiyah is right. To elaborate:
1. 2nd law of thermodynamics: the entropy of the universe is always increasing.
2. Entropy can be shown to be associated with orderliness: the less orderliness, the higher the entropy. A broken teacup is less orderly than a whole one, so the breaking of the teacup represents an increase in entropy. The relation is S = k*ln(w) where w represents the totality of possible states of an object, and k = Boltzmann constant. The more possible states, the higher the entropy. You can break a teacup into all kinds of ways, so w would be a very large number.
This enters the discipline of statistical mechanics as well as thermodynamics & is pretty heady stuff for an introductory physics course.
1. 2nd law of thermodynamics: the entropy of the universe is always increasing.
2. Entropy can be shown to be associated with orderliness: the less orderliness, the higher the entropy. A broken teacup is less orderly than a whole one, so the breaking of the teacup represents an increase in entropy. The relation is S = k*ln(w) where w represents the totality of possible states of an object, and k = Boltzmann constant. The more possible states, the higher the entropy. You can break a teacup into all kinds of ways, so w would be a very large number.
This enters the discipline of statistical mechanics as well as thermodynamics & is pretty heady stuff for an introductory physics course.
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Entropy