ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY #24 OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTISTS #24 = LUDWIG BOLTZMANN Life Dates = 1844-1906 A.D. FOUNDER OF STATISTICAL MECHANICS Boltzmann played a significant role in the discovery and formulation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics concerning entropy. Regarding thermodynamics, entropy represents the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, which is often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. In general, entropy is the lack of order or predictability or the gradual decline into disorder of some system. SOURCES = The Scientific 100 by John Simmons (pages 122-125); Britannica Encyclopedia; and Wikipedia. instantly go to: NUMERICAL LIST OF 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTISTS IN HISTORY or return to: ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY INDEX