--- product_id: 1698938 title: "Entropy And The Second Law: Interpretation And Misss-Interpretationsss" price: "£27.57" currency: GBP in_stock: true reviews_count: 12 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/1698938-entropy-and-the-second-law-interpretation-and-misss-interpretationsss store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # Entropy And The Second Law: Interpretation And Misss-Interpretationsss **Price:** £27.57 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Entropy And The Second Law: Interpretation And Misss-Interpretationsss - **How much does it cost?** £27.57 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/1698938-entropy-and-the-second-law-interpretation-and-misss-interpretationsss) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description This book presents a clear and readable description of one of the most mysterious concepts of physics: Entropy. It contains a self-learning kit that guides the reader in understanding the concepts of entropy. In the first part, the reader is asked to play the familiar twenty-Question game. Once the reader feels comfortable with playing this game and acquires proficiency in playing the game effectively (intelligently), he or she will be able to capture the elusive and used-to-be mysterious concept of entropy.There will be no more speculative or arbitrary interpretations, nor "older" or "modern" views of entropy. This book will guide readers in choosing their own interpretation of entropy. Review: Search for Simple, Intuitive and Qualitative Interpretation of Entropy - I was getting ready to order Arieh Ben-Naim's 2008 book, "Entropy Demystified", in order to prepare for a lifetime-learning class on the physics of time when I saw he had a newer book out. It sounded like it addressed issues raised by earlier works so it made sense to get his most current thoughts on the subject. I'm glad I did. I loved "Entropy and the Second Law". It's a fascinating set of topics that are covered in an enlightening and concise way for me. The organization of the book is nice and tight. In only five chapters author Ben-Naim develops his case for abandoning many imprecise descriptions of entropy (disorder, spreading, and freedom) and adopting Shannon's Measure of Information for scientific purposes. Using examples of thermodynamic processes, Ben-Naim shows how these commonly used terms mislead, or are inapplicable, and in any case fail to provide calculable results. Shannon's own words describing the result of his equation included information, choice and uncertainty. Although Shannon was developing a theory of communication, his results apply perfectly to thermodynamics too. (Wigner, where are you?) The math in the book requires some time to digest. How many of us remember how to use Lagrange multipliers to find a max/min with constraints after forty or more years of disuse? Also some derivations are sketchy and the reader is often referred to Ben-Naim's 2008 book which I don't have yet. I found it useful to have a couple of undergraduate books on statistical thermodynamics such as Reif or Müller-Kirsten. The author interacts with the reader via numerous questions and thought experiments to attain your own unique opinion on how to interpret entropy. Among the surprising things I learned, I especially liked the process of assimilation of an ideal gas and its affect on entropy. I don't remember ever seeing that one. I hope there is a second edition of this book that can discuss some different points of view like Sean Carroll's assertion that time's arrow is only explicable with the "Past Hypothesis" which he presents in his book "From Eternity to Here". Another related area that would be nice to touch on is black hole entropy as discussed in Leonard Susskind's book, "Black Hole Wars". Black holes account for most of the entropy in the current universe and there are some mysterious aspects to information disappearing into a black hole. Landauer and Bennett's analysis of Maxwell's Demon warrants at least a comment. The book's value would be enhanced by a much expanded index. Review: Arieh Ben-Naim brings much needed clarity to entropy - When I graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, I understood how to use the concept of entropy to solve certain problems, especially those pertaining to phase and reaction equilibria, but I never really understood what the concept itself was all about. It was simply a mathematical tool to me. And this frustrated me because I believed the concept to be understandable but simply hadn't been presented to me in such a way to make it so. Since then, I realized that it wasn't as easy as this, that the confusion around entropy is deep, primarily due to the historical timeline of its evolution, with Clausius establishing it as a key cornerstone of Classical Thermodynamics before the atomic theory of matter had been firmly established and accepted. So the cart came before the horse, so to speak. And here we are over 150 years later still wrestling with the consequences of this situation. Thank goodness someone of Arieh Ben-Naim's curiosity and playful intelligence came along to clarify things for us. In this book, and others that he's written on the subject, Ben-Naim explores and clarifies the most fundamental aspects of entropy using fun and colorful examples together wtih sound logic and insight. This book is a delight to read, which says much because it's not often that one can make such a claim about a book on entropy! Bob Hanlon Philadelphia ## Features - Used Book in Good Condition ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #3,036,592 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #144 in Physics of Entropy #602 in Thermodynamics (Books) #2,624 in General Chemistry | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 32 Reviews | ## Images ![Entropy And The Second Law: Interpretation And Misss-Interpretationsss - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61oEravJ6UL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Search for Simple, Intuitive and Qualitative Interpretation of Entropy *by J***N on June 3, 2013* I was getting ready to order Arieh Ben-Naim's 2008 book, "Entropy Demystified", in order to prepare for a lifetime-learning class on the physics of time when I saw he had a newer book out. It sounded like it addressed issues raised by earlier works so it made sense to get his most current thoughts on the subject. I'm glad I did. I loved "Entropy and the Second Law". It's a fascinating set of topics that are covered in an enlightening and concise way for me. The organization of the book is nice and tight. In only five chapters author Ben-Naim develops his case for abandoning many imprecise descriptions of entropy (disorder, spreading, and freedom) and adopting Shannon's Measure of Information for scientific purposes. Using examples of thermodynamic processes, Ben-Naim shows how these commonly used terms mislead, or are inapplicable, and in any case fail to provide calculable results. Shannon's own words describing the result of his equation included information, choice and uncertainty. Although Shannon was developing a theory of communication, his results apply perfectly to thermodynamics too. (Wigner, where are you?) The math in the book requires some time to digest. How many of us remember how to use Lagrange multipliers to find a max/min with constraints after forty or more years of disuse? Also some derivations are sketchy and the reader is often referred to Ben-Naim's 2008 book which I don't have yet. I found it useful to have a couple of undergraduate books on statistical thermodynamics such as Reif or Müller-Kirsten. The author interacts with the reader via numerous questions and thought experiments to attain your own unique opinion on how to interpret entropy. Among the surprising things I learned, I especially liked the process of assimilation of an ideal gas and its affect on entropy. I don't remember ever seeing that one. I hope there is a second edition of this book that can discuss some different points of view like Sean Carroll's assertion that time's arrow is only explicable with the "Past Hypothesis" which he presents in his book "From Eternity to Here". Another related area that would be nice to touch on is black hole entropy as discussed in Leonard Susskind's book, "Black Hole Wars". Black holes account for most of the entropy in the current universe and there are some mysterious aspects to information disappearing into a black hole. Landauer and Bennett's analysis of Maxwell's Demon warrants at least a comment. The book's value would be enhanced by a much expanded index. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Arieh Ben-Naim brings much needed clarity to entropy *by B***N on January 11, 2013* When I graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, I understood how to use the concept of entropy to solve certain problems, especially those pertaining to phase and reaction equilibria, but I never really understood what the concept itself was all about. It was simply a mathematical tool to me. And this frustrated me because I believed the concept to be understandable but simply hadn't been presented to me in such a way to make it so. Since then, I realized that it wasn't as easy as this, that the confusion around entropy is deep, primarily due to the historical timeline of its evolution, with Clausius establishing it as a key cornerstone of Classical Thermodynamics before the atomic theory of matter had been firmly established and accepted. So the cart came before the horse, so to speak. And here we are over 150 years later still wrestling with the consequences of this situation. Thank goodness someone of Arieh Ben-Naim's curiosity and playful intelligence came along to clarify things for us. In this book, and others that he's written on the subject, Ben-Naim explores and clarifies the most fundamental aspects of entropy using fun and colorful examples together wtih sound logic and insight. This book is a delight to read, which says much because it's not often that one can make such a claim about a book on entropy! Bob Hanlon Philadelphia ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A very clear book on entropy and the second law of thermodynamics *by F***R on June 28, 2012* This is a very good book on Entropy and the second Law of Thermodynamics. Here are a few points which stood out in the book: Some important questions on entropy are studied in chapter 5. This includes: (i) "What is entropy?" (ii) "Why does it increase in one direction?" (iii) "How does a thermodynamic system move from one state to another?" I completely agreed with the author regarding his replies to these questions. I very much enjoyed the way he talked about mixing, assimilation and deassimilation and how the idea of disorder (one of the approaches used to understand entropy) cannot be used to resolve the issues raised when discussing these standard problems. I think that the names used to describe these processes should be changed to take into account what actually happens in the same way that entropy should be dimensionless and so make it far more amenable to an understanding in terms of information. I also found the added sections in chapter five: sections 5.5 and 5.6 extremely valuable. I have found too many scientists willing to make assertions which appear to be true but in fact are really somewhat fanciful ideas without a solid basis in science. I also liked the author's comment on the second law and life and do not think that entropy can be used to study life given it's highly non-equilibrium character unless entropy could be defined in a new way such that it makes sense for processes in non-equilibrium states. I liked how the author stuck to the rigorous definition of entropy and made very good arguments to make sure the concept is not used outside of its range of applicability. I think this should be made far clearer in the standard texts which is why I liked his comment of the splattered egg example often used by other writers even when it does not apply. This book is a picture of clarity in this regard. I also very much liked how he made the point that Shannon Missing Information is a very different thing from entropy and that entropy lies in a subset of this more general concept. This certainly makes the idea of information a far more useful concept in science and more applicable in other fields. I also found that the author introduced the uncertainty principle in a better way in the current book than he did in his 2008 book where the modifications needed for classical ideas seemed to appear suddenly whereas in the current book they were far more natural and made good sense. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/1698938-entropy-and-the-second-law-interpretation-and-misss-interpretationsss](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/1698938-entropy-and-the-second-law-interpretation-and-misss-interpretationsss) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-27*