Science Museum 100 Physics Ideas in 100 Words by DK

Author:DK
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780744088199
Publisher: DK Publishing

In 1959 physicist, novelist and politician C. P. Snow complained that, while it was assumed that an educated person would know the plays of Shakespeare, few could explain the significance of the second law of thermodynamics. There are four Laws of Thermodynamics. The most fundamental law was added to the list after the others were well established, and so is known as the “zeroth” law.

The four laws (see box) can be expressed like this. The zeroth law says that if objects A and B are at the same temperature, and B and C are also, then A and C are, too. Then the first law explains that energy is conserved; it can be neither created nor destroyed. The second law says that heat flows from hot objects to cold objects, and tends to be dissipated as heat – the disorder of the system increases. And the third law says that removing energy from a system reduces its temperature, but absolute zero can never be reached.

In

100

words

Zeroth law: If A and B are in thermal equilibrium with one another, and B and C are also, then A and C are in thermal equilibrium.

First law: If a force does work (W) on a body and an amount of energy (H) is transferred to it by thermal transfer, its energy will increase by the sum of these, W + H.

Second law: Thermal energy transfer occurs down a temperature gradient from hot to cold. Entropy increases.

Third law: At absolute zero a system has minimum values of energy and entropy, although this is unattainable in practice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.