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[a] While processes in isolated systems are never reversible, [3] cyclical processes can be reversible or irreversible. [4] Reversible processes are hypothetical or idealized but central to the second law of thermodynamics. [3] Melting or freezing of ice in water is an example of a realistic process that is nearly reversible.
A process is said to be physically reversible if it results in no increase in physical entropy; it is isentropic. There is a style of circuit design ideally exhibiting this property that is referred to as charge recovery logic , adiabatic circuits , or adiabatic computing (see Adiabatic process ).
Typically, each thermodynamic process is distinguished from other processes in energetic character according to what parameters, such as temperature, pressure, or volume, etc., are held fixed; Furthermore, it is useful to group these processes into pairs, in which each variable held constant is one member of a conjugate pair.
For a particular reversible process in general, the work done reversibly on the system, ,, and the heat transferred reversibly to the system, , are not required to occur respectively adiabatically or adynamically, but they must belong to the same particular process defined by its particular reversible path, , through the space of thermodynamic ...
where a reversible path is chosen from absolute zero to the final state, so that for an isothermal reversible process Δ S = Q r e v T {\displaystyle \Delta S={Q_{rev} \over T}} . In general, for any cyclic process the state points can be connected by reversible paths, so that
Endoreversible thermodynamics is a subset of irreversible thermodynamics aimed at making more realistic assumptions about heat transfer than are typically made in reversible thermodynamics. It gives an upper bound on the power that can be derived from a real process that is lower than that predicted by Carnot for a Carnot cycle , and ...
Reverse computation is a software application of the concept of reversible computing.. Because it offers a possible solution to the heat problem faced by chip manufacturers, reversible computing has been extensively studied in the area of computer architecture.
Loschmidt's paradox is equivalent to the question of how it is possible that there could be a thermodynamic arrow of time given time-symmetric fundamental laws, since time-symmetry implies that for any process compatible with these fundamental laws, a reversed version that looked exactly like a film of the first process played backwards would ...