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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 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).
In more direct terms, the theorem gives us a way to determine if a cyclical process is reversible or irreversible. The Clausius theorem provides a quantitative formula for understanding the second law. Clausius was one of the first to work on the idea of entropy and is even responsible for giving it that name.
The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics (LoTD) and Laws for conservation of matter (LCoM) set limiting conditions for life on earth: The First Law says that energy is conserved; nothing disappears, its form simply changes (e.g. heat, movement). Another way of stating this is: "Energy cannot be created, or destroyed, only modified in form."
Research concerning the relationship between the thermodynamic quantity entropy and both the origin and evolution of life began around the turn of the 20th century. In 1910 American historian Henry Adams printed and distributed to university libraries and history professors the small volume A Letter to American Teachers of History proposing a theory of history based on the second law of ...
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The arrow of time is the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time. The thermodynamic arrow of time is provided by the second law of thermodynamics, which says that in an isolated system, entropy tends to increase with time. Entropy can be thought of as a measure of microscopic disorder; thus the second law implies that time is asymmetrical ...