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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).
Traditionally, thermodynamics has recognized three fundamental laws, simply named by an ordinal identification, the first law, the second law, and the third law. [1] [2] [3] A more fundamental statement was later labelled as the zeroth law after the first three laws had been established.
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.
By the second law of thermodynamics, heat will flow from hotter bodies to adjacent colder bodies, ... With a simple division, ...
The zeroth law was not initially recognized as a separate law of thermodynamics, as its basis in thermodynamical equilibrium was implied in the other laws. The first, second, and third laws had been explicitly stated already, and found common acceptance in the physics community before the importance of the zeroth law for the definition of ...
This is closely related to the second law of thermodynamics: For example, in a finite system interacting with finite heat reservoirs, entropy is equivalent to system-reservoir correlations, and thus both increase together. [5] Take for example (experiment A) a closed box that is, at the beginning, half-filled with ideal gas.
Maxwell's relations are a set of equations in thermodynamics which are derivable from the symmetry of second derivatives and from the definitions of the thermodynamic potentials. These relations are named for the nineteenth-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell .
Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment that appears to disprove the second law of thermodynamics. It was proposed by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1867. [ 1 ] In his first letter, Maxwell referred to the entity as a "finite being" or a "being who can play a game of skill with the molecules".