# The Area Law of Molecular Entropy: Moving beyond Harmonic Approximation

## TL;DR

The paper introduces a new method to estimate molecular entropy based on molecular surface area, which is faster and more accurate than existing methods.

## Contribution

A novel approach to calculate gas-phase entropy using molecular surface area with curvature corrections is proposed.

## Key findings

- Gas-phase entropy is proportional to molecular surface area with curvature corrections.
- The area law method outperforms harmonic oscillator approximation in speed and accuracy.
- This method enables better integration of entropy in computational biology.

## Abstract

This article shows that the gas-phase entropy of molecules is proportional to the area of the molecules, with corrections for the different curvatures of the molecular surface. The ability to estimate gas-phase entropy by the area law also allows us to calculate molecular entropy faster and more accurately than currently popular methods of estimating molecular entropy with harmonic oscillator approximation. The speed and accuracy of our method will open up new possibilities for the explicit inclusion of entropy in various computational biology methods.