Entropies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A measure of the randomness or disorder in a system
2. a quantitative representation of uncertainty or unpredictability in a statistical context
3. an indication of the energy in a system that is not available for doing work

Etymology: "Entropies" is simply the plural of "entropy," so it takes its history from that word. The term was coined in 1865 by the German physicist Rudolph Clausius, who built it by analogy with "Energie" (energy). He wanted a name for a quantity connected with the transformation of heat in physical systems, and he deliberately swapped the root of "energy," taken from Ancient Greek "ergon" (work), for "tropē" (transformation), giving a word meaning roughly "a turning toward" or "transformation." The English form first appeared in 1867, as a direct translation of Clausius's German coinage. Because Clausius created the term for a specific physics concept, its meaning was technical from the start, and "entropy" was not a word people had used in everyday speech before.