A microstate is an element of a macrostate.
Microstates are the different possible ways a system can achieve a particular macrostate.
Assume we flip a coin twice to generate a microstate. Four microstates exist.
- heads, heads
- heads, tails
- tails, heads
- tails, tails
Assume we give one point for heads and zero points for tails. We can designate macrostates by the property of score. Two microstates correspond to a score of 1. The scores of 0 and 2 each have a single microstate.
Rob Sterling 