The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 letter word ENTROPY
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
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More clues leading to the result ENTROPY
- Physical amount of energy left over in New York
- Place for treatment, with poor lack of order
- Space close to patient with bad disorder
- Opening with work in disorder
- Contestant receives surgery for disorder
- Physical state of work included in note
- Part of hospital, inadequate and in a state of chaos
- Work in foyer is no improvement!
- Work during admission always keeps increasing
- Work interrupts participation, energy wasted
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Physical state" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case physical state = entropy.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does ENTROPY mean?
ENTROPY noun- Strictly thermodynamic entropy. A measure of the amount of energy in a physical system that cannot be used to do work.
- A measure of the disorder present in a system.
- The capacity factor for thermal energy that is hidden with respect to temperature http//arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0004055.
- The dispersal of energy; how much energy is spread out in a process, or how widely spread out it becomes, at a specific temperature. https//web.archive.org/web/20060702234316/http://www.entropysite.com/students_approach.html
- A measure of the amount of information and noise present in a signal.
- The tendency of a system that is left to itself to descend into chaos.