Sharon Glotzer, a computational physicist and professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, uses statistical mechanics to probe how the properties of materials emerge from the dynamics of their countless constituent particles. This week, she speaks with host Steven Strogatz about how a broken oil pump changed her life, how entropy is all about choices, and how she is driven to find the simple rules that explain the universe's complexity. This episode was produced by Dana Bialek. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/sharon-glotzers-deep-curiosity-about-order-from-chaos-20210322/. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.