Physics

Heat cannot be created or destroyed. Heat can only flow from place to place, or change form.

Law of Conservation

• There is no heat flow between objects that are the same temperature.
• Ex. Heat flows from the boiling water into the thermometer until they are the same temperature. When they are both the same temperature, heat stops flowing between them, so the temperature of the thermometer stops rising.

Energy of all kinds in our material world disperses or spreads out if it is not hindered from doing so.

Predicts the probability of the dispersal of energy that is localized or "concentrated" in a group of molecules or atoms

A closed system is one that does not exchange any energy with the surrounding environment.

Ex. The universe is a closed system because there is nothing outside of it to exchange heat with.

Every time heat flows from a hot spot to a cold spot, entropyincreases. Every time heat flows from a cold spot to a hot spot, entropy decreases.

An ideal engine would convert 100% of the heat into useful work only if its exhaust temperature were absolute zero. In other words, 100% efficiency is impossible.

• A way to measure quantitatively (expressible as a quantity or relating to or susceptible of measurement) what the second law of thermodynamics describes: the dispersal of energy in a process in our material world.
• -How much energy is spread out in a particular process, or how widely spread out it becomes