How to Write 熵 (shāng) — Meaning “entropy”

Imagine a fire (火) burning inside a shop (商), causing everything to become chaotic and disordered — this chaos reminds you of entropy. Alternatively, think of 'fire' plus the sound 'shāng' like 'shang' in 'Shanghai', and entropy is a key concept in physics.

Write the left radical 火 first with strokes: dot, left-slanting, right-slanting, then a small dot. Then write the right part 商 starting with a dot on top, a horizontal stroke, and a vertical hook that forms the enclosure. Be careful not to confuse the inner components of 商 with similar-looking parts like 啇.

熵 has the right side 商 (shāng), while 煅 has 段 (duàn) meaning 'segment' and is used for forging metal (煅烧). 煆 has 夏 (xià) meaning 'summer' and refers to heating or scorching. Visually, the right parts are different: 商 vs 段 vs 夏, and their meanings are unrelated to entropy.

熵 is primarily used in physics and thermodynamics to describe entropy, such as in the term 熵增 (shāng zēng, entropy increase). It also appears in information theory and occasionally in social sciences as a metaphor for disorder. This character is not common in daily conversation and is mainly found in academic or technical contexts.

Common words containing 熵 include: 熵增 (shāng zēng) — entropy increase; 熵值 (shāng zhí) — entropy value; 负熵 (fù shāng) — negentropy.