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The laws of thermodynamics are the result of progress made in this field over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first established thermodynamic principle, which eventually became the second law of thermodynamics, was formulated by Sadi Carnot in 1824 in his book Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire.
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).
The principle of minimum energy is essentially a restatement of the second law of thermodynamics. It states that for a closed system, with constant external parameters and entropy, the internal energy will decrease and approach a minimum value at equilibrium. External parameters generally means the volume, but may include other parameters which ...
The second was the 1933 book Modern Thermodynamics by the methods of Willard Gibbs written by E. A. Guggenheim. In this manner, Lewis, Randall, and Guggenheim are considered as the founders of modern chemical thermodynamics because of the major contribution of these two books in unifying the application of thermodynamics to chemistry. [1]
Second law of thermodynamics: There are many statements of this law, perhaps the simplest is "the entropy of isolated systems never decreases", Δ S ≥ 0 {\displaystyle \Delta S\geq 0} meaning reversible changes have zero entropy change, irreversible process are positive, and impossible process are negative.
The first and second law of thermodynamics are the most fundamental equations of thermodynamics. They may be combined into what is known as fundamental thermodynamic relation which describes all of the changes of thermodynamic state functions of a system of uniform temperature and pressure.
The existence of such states is a basic postulate of classical thermodynamics. [4] [5] This postulate is sometimes, but not often, called the minus first law of thermodynamics. [6] A notable exception exists for isolated quantum systems which are many-body localized and which never reach internal thermal equilibrium.
Classical thermodynamics considers three main kinds of thermodynamic processes: (1) changes in a system, (2) cycles in a system, and (3) flow processes. (1) A Thermodynamic process is a process in which the thermodynamic state of a system is changed.