ABSTRACT
‘Entropy’ is a foundational concept in the subjects of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, which, in turn, are foundational for the subject of chemistry, the oldest of the nanosciences. The idea of entropy captures the observation that nature always seems to run toward greater disorder. Entropy constitutes a quantitative way of characterizing the disorder. That is to say, natural processes tend to increase entropy. The most that one can say about irreversibility in Newton’s equations is something practical. For just two bodies, Newton’s equations can be solved exactly, in closed form. The big idealization in Newtonian mechanics is the instantaneous communication among particles. This idealization goes away with the advent of Maxwell’s equations. Electromagnetic signals have to comport with Maxwell’s equations. The principle of entropy maximization implies that the silver ions have to end up distributed in a Gaussian way over all their possible ionization/energy states.
