Degeneracy

[Vanessa Romero-Campos 2B]

In class we compared the equilibrium of entropy and the equilibrium in entropy, where in entropy equilibrium was hit at a minimum value while in entropy it was reached at a maximum value. My notes are incomplete and I was wondering what the point of this comparison was.

[Julie Steklof 1A]

I think one of the main points made was that like a "boulder on a hill" (in the enthalpy diagram) you would not expect it to start rolling up the hill without work being put in, naturally it would go to the lowest point. This is in contrast to entropy where you would not expect a system to move off the highest entropy point without work being done on the system.

[Wayland Leung]

What are the equations for degeneracy? In what context would we solve for degeneracy?

[Felicia Fong 2G]

In the first lecture about entropy we calculated W(degeneracy) in this problem: Two atoms(A,B) in a flask with two equivalent(same energy) states L and R.
We drew the 4 different microstates. The equation we used is W=2^N.