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The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal empirical observation concerning heat and energy interconversions.A simple statement of the law is that heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder regions of matter (or 'downhill' in terms of the temperature gradient).
According to the second law, in a reversible heat transfer, an element of heat transferred, , is the product of the temperature (), both of the system and of the sources or destination of the heat, with the increment of the system's conjugate variable, its entropy (): [1]
Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. [1] The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science ( physics , chemistry , astronomy , geoscience , biology ).
Chemical thermodynamics is the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics. Chemical thermodynamics involves not only laboratory measurements of various thermodynamic properties, but also the application of mathematical methods to the ...
Thus, a negative value of the change in free energy is a necessary condition for a process to be spontaneous; this is the most useful form of the second law of thermodynamics in chemistry. In chemical equilibrium at constant T and p without electrical work, d G = 0.
The third stoichiometric law is the law of reciprocal proportions, which provides the basis for establishing equivalent weights for each chemical element. Elemental equivalent weights can then be used to derive atomic weights for each element. More modern laws of chemistry define the relationship between energy and transformations.
The applicability of a second law of thermodynamics is limited to systems in or sufficiently near equilibrium state, so that they have defined entropy. [42] Some inhomogeneous systems out of thermodynamic equilibrium still satisfy the hypothesis of local thermodynamic equilibrium , so that entropy density is locally defined as an intensive ...
Thermodynamic temperature is a quantity defined in thermodynamics as distinct from kinetic theory or statistical mechanics.. Historically, thermodynamic temperature was defined by Lord Kelvin in terms of a macroscopic relation between thermodynamic work and heat transfer as defined in thermodynamics, but the kelvin was redefined by international agreement in 2019 in terms of phenomena that are ...