Entropy, disorder, and freezing

It is argued that the usual view that entropy is a measure of "disorder" is problematic and that there exist systems at high density, for which packing considerations dominate, where a spatially ordered state has a higher entropy than a disordered one. A classic example is a system of hard-sphere atoms, for which freezing is known to be purely entropy driven. Such a model has relevance to the real world, since it provides a good qualitative (and nearly quantitative) description of solid-liquid coexistence in simple systems such as argon. An analogy based on the packing of suitcases is given to illustrate the main point. A simple classroom demonstration is also described in which an analog simulation of the freezing of hard particles is performed.