What is the second law of thermodynamics?
Answers
Answer:
Energy is the ability to bring about change or to do work. ... The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also commonly referred to as entropy.
Explanation:
The second law of thermodynamics establishes the concept of entropy as a physical property of a thermodynamic system.
The second law may be formulated by the observation that the entropy of isolated systems left to spontaneous evolution cannot decrease, as they always arrive at a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, where the entropy is highest. If all processes in the system are reversible, the entropy is constant.
An increase in entropy accounts for the irreversibility of natural processes, often referred to in the concept of the arrow of time.
Historically, the second law was an empirical finding that was accepted as an axiom of thermodynamic theory. Statistical mechanics provides a microscopic explanation of the law in terms of probability distributions of the states of large assemblies of atoms or molecules.