I was trying to write my post so that it comes across in a way that doesn't require stat. mech to understand (you just need to know how derivatives work). You

I was trying to write my post so that it comes across in a way that doesn't require stat. mech to understand (you just need to know how derivatives work). You don't have to understand how the equations are derived to understand what the result means. To explain what I mean by states, consider a 3-bit string. How many states are there? 2^3 = 8 states. Similarly, if you have a collection of particles, there's only a finite number of "arrangements" (for lack of a better word) that these particles can be in. The more possible arrangements, the higher the entropy. I added another post on why I think the headline is misleading. Basically, if the article's intent is to explain the subject to non-physicists, they're just going to confuse people by using that word "temperature". Instead, it's better to say what you normally think of as temperature (hot and cold) has a more precise, mathematical definition that doesn't really correspond to intuitive notions of hot and cold any more. > Still, it's the top comment because every top comment on Hacker News is "that headline is misleading." And for good reason. That's why the article gets so much attention and discussion. If it had been submitted as "Unique quantum gas has decreasing entropy for increasing energy" it would have no replies.