释义 |
entropic, a.|ɛnˈtrɒpɪk| [f. entropy + -ic.] Of or pertaining to entropy; characterized by or resulting from entropy. Freq. fig., with allusion to the randomness, uniformity, and unavailability of energy for work that entropy measures.
1930W. H. Auden Poems 58 But taking the first steps falters, is vexed By opposite strivings for entropic peace. 1946Koestler Thieves in Night 274 A solar spot has burst and expanded its heat into the great pool of entropic indifference. 1971Nature 4 June 313/1 The free energies of these interactions are entropic in origin. 1977J. L. Harper Population Biol. Plants xxiii. 748 There is nothing in the process of evolution..to suggest that the collective evolution of the populations in a community is towards some ideal—community structure, stability,..information content, entropic level. 1980S. Naipaul Black & White ii. iv. 182 After the initial frenzy, entropic exhaustion was bound to set in. 1983Nature 3 Feb. 399/1 Invoking the expansion of the Universe provokes us to contemplate the entropic qualities of the cosmological gravitational field. Hence enˈtropically adv., as regards entropy; in an entropic manner.
1974Physics Bull. Dec. 580/3 The number of possible arrangements of water molecules is greater, and entropically favoured, if the contact between nonpolar groups and water is minimized, and that between polar groups and water maximized. 1983Nature 3 Feb. 399/1 Nucleosynthesis became entropically favoured. 1983Observer 22 May 31/1 Jack Kerouac..for a few unconsecutive months in the mid-1950s consented to be billeted, fed and adored by her, before drifting back entropically to the road. |