From Disorder to Order
Presenter: Gerhard Ertl
Published: July 2014
Age: 18-22 and upwards
Views: 1206 views
Tags: thermodynamics;entropy;order;disorder
Type: Lectures
Source/institution: Lindau-Nobel
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Our experience suggests that a system will usually show the tendency to undergo spontaneously a transition from the state of order into disorder. Quite in contrast, our world developed from an initial state of great disorder into another one where even the highest degree of order is observed in living organisms. The basic mechanisms governing these unexpected transformations are phase transitions (self assembly) in closed systems attempting to attain thermal equilibrium and self-organization in open systems far from equilibrium. Chemical processes occurring at solid surfaces will serve as examples to illustrate the underlying principles.
