Entropy is understood to be a type of physical quantity that calculates the energy that exists in a certain object or element but is not useful for carrying out work or effort. Entropy is that energy that is not usable before the advent of a thermodynamic process, for example, the putting into circulation of a certain amount of energy from the reaction of one or more elements. Thus, in terms closer to the common lexicon, entropy could be described as the energy that is disposable before a thermodynamic process, that energy that is not used and therefore is not considered useful for such a process.
Within the thermodynamics or branch of physics that studies the processes that arise from the heating of energies and the setting in motion of different natural elements. Entropy figures within this branch of physics as a kind of disorder of everything that is systematized, that is, as the reference or the demonstration that when something is not controlled it can be transformed and disordered. Entropy, moreover, supposes that a situation of equilibrium or homogeneity arises from that chaos or disorder existing in a system that, despite being different from the initial condition, supposes that the parts are now equal or balanced.
When we talk about entropy, which is represented graphically by the letter S, we are talking about a natural process by which elements lose their energy or are transformed into new elements, leaving behind a trace of waste that cannot be reused. If we take into account that the word entropy comes from the Greek and represents the idea of evolution or transformation, we can better understand its meaning: entropy is nothing more than a phenomenon by which something homogeneous is obtained from a breakdown of equilibrium and the release of energy that cannot be reused.
