The idea is general. Glass shattering, a candle burning, ink spilling, perfume pervading: these are different processes, but the statistical considerations are the same. In each, order degrades to disorder and does so because there are so many ways to be disordered. The beauty of this kind of analysis—the insight provided one of the most potent “Aha!” moments in my physics education—is that, without getting lost in the microscopic details, we have a guiding principle to explain why a great many phenomena unfold the way they do.
