A simple model for simulating entropy phenomena using Markov chains

The aim of this paper is to describe a computer-based application centered on the teaching style of learning by discovery. A simulation tool for a simple model for entropy is presented. We frame the simulation in the theory of Markov chains, and more precisely of birth-death processes. The user is thus lead to conjecture, or at least gain some feeling for, the structure of the eigensystem of the stochastic matrix associated to the birth-death process, and its influence on the behaviour of the system it describes.