
The concept of entropy was introduced by Rudolf Clausius in 1865, generalizing the second law of thermodynamics. Ludwig Boltzmann gave a statistical interpretation: entropy is related to the number of ways particles can be organized. James Maxwell proposed a thought experiment with a "demon" sorting molecules, which deepened the understanding of the connection between entropy and information. In the 20th century, Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes have enormous entropy related to their area.
At the microscopic level, entropy grows because there are many more disorder states than order ones. Toss a handful of coins: almost never will all land heads up, because there are unimaginably many ways to scatter them mixed up. Similarly, gas molecules tend to fill the entire volume - that's the most probable, high-entropy state.