Heat, Entropy, and Temperature

why heat tobe divided by temperature to get entropy?
- v.hariharan (age 70)
chennai,tamilnadu ,india

The relation you're referring to is dS=dQ/T, the change in entropy is the heat input divided by the absolute temperature. This is really a definition of what we mean by absolute temperature, T. The other common descriptions of T, in terms of volumes of gases or of typical energies of molecules, are all approximate relations derived from this fundamental definition.  We give an example of such a derivation here: http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=14736.

Mike W.

(published on 11/28/2012)