EXPLOITING LANGUAGE IN TEACHING OF ENTROPY

The words disorder, information, freedom and spreading are used as metaphors and analogies in science teaching to capture the scientific qualitative sense of entropy. In addition, the identification of entropy with the everyday conception of heat has been proposed. While physical sciences are regarded as exact disciplines, in which terms have precise definitions, the words being used in the qualitative interpretation of entropy have many senses. This may provide an obstacle to achieving a scientific understanding of entropy. In this study, the metaphors for entropy and seeing entropy as heat were analysed by use of the different entries for the words in a dictionary. The present paper is a contribution to highlighting the importance of making any metaphors and analogies and their benefits and limitations explicit.