entropy increase?

Question

I am wondering where my thinking is going wrong here.

They say for a process to happen, the total entropy change has to either stay the same or increase. If this is the case, what happens when water freezes. The number of ways the atoms can be arranged decreases, yet the process still occurs. Why is it?

Answer 1

You need to think of it in terms of overall entropy. The entropy of water decreases as heat is removed. Therefore, the surroundings must experience an increase of entropy for the process to occur.

Answer 2

The second law states that every process increases the entropy of the universe. Entropy is the quantitive measure of disorder of a system. If we look at any organism as a system that needs and uses energy, we can see what would happen if the energy supply was cut off. The system would fail due to lack of the necessary energy to meet its needs. This type of system is considered a closed system. No new energy can enter, while the available energy is changed into useless heat, causing the system to fail. Heat is a useless form of energy unless it is used to maintain temperature of a system, but it must move from a warm area to a cool one. The earth and its organisms are not closed systems. They are considered open, due to the fact that they can replenish their energy when needed. The sun and food are their means of replacement. If for some reason the energy supply stops they will become a closed system and fail. All open systems will eventually fail due to the process of energy turning into useless heat. The universe will eventually die due to a lack of useful energy and an abundance of heat. The universe is a closed system. The entropy of the room will decrease in the first situation. The second one it will increase.

Answer 3

The entropy must stay the same or increase in a closed system. Freezing water is not a closed system, because the heat removed from the water has to go someplace else, thereby increasing the entropy there and overall.

Answer 4

you can reduce entropy, but only by cooling - drawing heat out of your system.

There's also the point about where you draw your system boundary, and whether or not you allow energy and/or matter to cross the boundary. A living organism could be thought of as an entropy reducer, but if you draw the system boundary correctly you find that the organism turns well ordered things like steak tartare and sun-blushed tomatoes and turns them into p1ss and sh1t. Within THAT boundary, entropy increases even though in some little corner of the bounded system it decreased

Answer 5

entropy is decay, or stagnation in a closed system.

but ice isnt a good example as its fluidic. all we can do is raise the ambient, or lower it. entropy being a meridian plus, or minus.

the increase is the lowering of the temp, which effects co-combining molecules, which causes sympathetic freezing, the mmore ice you have, the more you get... til you run out of free water.. complete entropy.