A hundred years of entropy

JAN 01, 1968

From primitive machines and the discovery of fire came problems of mechanics and heat. The steam engine brought them forcibly together. Out of the study of heat‐to‐work transformations that resulted, came our entropy concept, and extension of the reasoning has brought useful applications in far‐removed subjects like probability, number theory, information theory and language.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3034744

Mahadev Dutta

PERHAPS THE PARADOX of entropy is that it has so long a history and yet so many remaining puzzles. We might say that the roots of its history go back even to primitive man. In his struggle for existence he used crude appliances and discovered fire. From closer intimacy with more and more developed machines sprang mechanics, and from fire came the theory of heat; the two were quite separate sciences.

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More about the authors

Mahadev Dutta, India Institute of Technology.