Talk:Entropy

Confusing lede section

Maybe you science-y types can understand this, but a layman such as myself has absolutely no idea what you're talking about here. Truly baffling. The best way to explain a difficult concept is to start in terms that people know -- please use a simple metaphor or ideas to explain this difficult concept.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:20, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

True, entropy is a very abstract concept and understanding it relies on a prior understanding of some other concepts. For this reason our article on entropy is supported by another: Introduction to entropy. Remember Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a text book. Dolphin (t) 23:01, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Tomwsulcer. The section is nothing more than a bunch physics undergrads using Wikipedia to 'intellectually masturbate' - that is, to stimulate oneself by spraying overly elaborate/technical knowledge on to others for no other reason than to gain gratification from one's displayed superior knowledge... Yes Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, so it should aim to easily impart knowledge to the 'everyman' as encyclopaedias are supposed to do, and not just to college physics students. As it stands, the opening section reads more like an advanced physics text book than a Wikipedia section - it tells the vast majority of readers absolutely nothing. Imagine if Wikipedia pages on Ancient Egypt were written in hieroglyphs... it would tell college students majoring in Ancient Egyptology heaps; everyone else with an interest, however, would come away learning f*** all. In such a case, it simply wouldn't be acceptable to be told - "Read our article: an introduction to hieroglyphics." M R G WIKI999 (talk) 12:24, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to User:Waleswatcher for helping fix this, the body of the article is still too great in scope but it's a lot better now as the lede is so important for new readers on the topic. We should now focus on what else to cut in favour of a better article, for example how deep do the Cosmology and Information Theory sections need to be if we have a disambiguation? Should there be an "Introduction to Entropy" article, isn't that admitting failure? 82.2.57.14 (talk) 14:26, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, and thanks for your own edits that inspired mine. Regarding the body, I haven't read it all carefully. Are the sections that look especially problematic to you? As for introduction to entropy, I think I agree with you on general grounds. Also that article is not particularly good, and indeed if it's needed at all it makes more sense to me to have it as a section in the entropy article. What certainly does belong somewhere is a nice, intuitive example that helps people understand what entropy is, why it's so large numerically for macroscopic systems, and why it (almost) always increases. I could easily put something like that together if it isn't already done somewhere. Waleswatcher (talk) 15:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

If we submit a merge request with introduction to entropy and break up section 6 then I think that's the best start. Then this article is responsible for both audiences so there's no cop out. 6.1 can join the definitions, a lot of 6.2 onwards can be merged down into 7 because "Applications" and "Approaches to Understanding" mostly mean similar things as presented here. Do you have the authority to submit the merge? I that should happen first. 82.2.57.14 (talk) 19:28, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't have any "authority" (other than being a registered user) and I've never submitted a merge request - but anyway maybe we should see if other editors have comments on this idea first. I'll create a new section here and in that article with that suggestion and ask for comments. Waleswatcher (talk) 20:56, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Merge with Introduction to entropy?

User:82.2.57.14 has the following suggestion: "If we submit a merge request with introduction to entropy and break up section 6 then I think that's the best start. Then this article is responsible for both audiences so there's no cop out. 6.1 can join the definitions, a lot of 6.2 onwards can be merged down into 7 because "Applications" and "Approaches to Understanding" mostly mean similar things as presented here." I think this is a good idea. Thoughts? Waleswatcher (talk) 20:58, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I wish we had a better article for Introduction to entropy. Entropy is a complicated subject and students and layman are always looking for an interpretation and an intuition about it (comparable with relativity and quantum mechanics). In the better of worlds, we would TNT Intro to Entropy. Yet I won't oppose a merge if in that way we may boost the entropy article. --MaoGo (talk) 10:04, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Oppose: I changed my mind due to the conversation below Talk:Entropy#Proposed merge with Entropy (energy dispersal). Introduction to entropy is fundamental to understand why we have so many PHYSICS articles under entropy (disambiguation). --MaoGo (talk) 08:54, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Oppose: The proposal to eliminate the article Introduction to entropy, or merge with another article, has been seen at least twice before. I am opposed to it. Wikipedia has a number of Introduction articles supporting complex scientific concepts. These are valuable articles that serve a different purpose than providing a rigorous and comprehensive explanation. Dolphin (t) 21:53, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Entropy (energy dispersal)

Due to factual accuracy and contradiction dispute, merging with slight alteration might be a fix. Kirbanzo (talk) 04:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Oppose: The Entropy (energy dispersal) article needs expert attention before any merge may be made. Also, as Entropy (disambiguation) shows, we are currently keeping every interpretation of entropy in a separated article. --MaoGo (talk) 08:51, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. The article seems to be more about educational issues than entropy itself. That is, what is the right way to teach the subject? Perhaps it should be renamed to Teaching of entropy or something similar. SpinningSpark 09:10, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Spinning. A good portion of the Entropy (order and disorder) as it is currently written is also about the pedagogy. Maybe we could merge them both into that article. TStein (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)