{"id":810,"date":"2019-06-17T19:25:19","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T19:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/louisville-wm-physics\/?post_type=chapter&p=810"},"modified":"2019-10-31T16:26:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T16:26:28","slug":"putting-it-together-entropy-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/louisville-wm-physics\/chapter\/putting-it-together-entropy-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics\/","title":{"raw":"Putting It Together: Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics","rendered":"Putting It Together: Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics"},"content":{"raw":"One of the fascinating aspects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is its relation to our understanding of time.\u00a0 Think about almost any video you have ever watched.\u00a0 Do you think you would be able to determine whether or not the video is running forwards or backwards?\u00a0 We simply recognize that some processes do not happen spontaneously.\u00a0 A pendulum that initial hangs straight down doesn\u2019t suddenly begin to swing back and forth, going a little farther each time, without something doing work on the pendulum to get it to begin swinging.\u00a0 But a pendulum that is swinging will certainly swing less and less as it swings back and forth, until it finally comes to a stop.\u00a0 The fact that we see only one of those scenarios as a possible future outcome is related to entropy.\u00a0 Equilibrium states are the highest entropy state for a system.\u00a0 For thermodynamics systems which often contain more than 1023<\/sup> particles, the likelihood of a system being in equilibrium completely dwarfs the odds of it being in any other configuration.","rendered":"

One of the fascinating aspects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is its relation to our understanding of time.\u00a0 Think about almost any video you have ever watched.\u00a0 Do you think you would be able to determine whether or not the video is running forwards or backwards?\u00a0 We simply recognize that some processes do not happen spontaneously.\u00a0 A pendulum that initial hangs straight down doesn\u2019t suddenly begin to swing back and forth, going a little farther each time, without something doing work on the pendulum to get it to begin swinging.\u00a0 But a pendulum that is swinging will certainly swing less and less as it swings back and forth, until it finally comes to a stop.\u00a0 The fact that we see only one of those scenarios as a possible future outcome is related to entropy.\u00a0 Equilibrium states are the highest entropy state for a system.\u00a0 For thermodynamics systems which often contain more than 1023<\/sup> particles, the likelihood of a system being in equilibrium completely dwarfs the odds of it being in any other configuration.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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