Second law of thermodynamics

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). Another statement is: "Not all heat can be
converted into work in a cyclic process."[1][2][3]

The second law of thermodynamics establishes the concept of entropy as a physical property of a thermodynamic
system. It predicts whether processes are forbidden despite obeying the requirement of conservation of energy as
expressed in the first law of thermodynamics and provides necessary criteria for spontaneous processes. For example,
the first law allows the process of a cup falling off a table and breaking on the floor, as well as allowing the reverse
process of the cup fragments coming back together and 'jumping' back onto the table, while the second law allows the
former and denies the latter. The second law may be formulated by the observation that the entropy of isolated
systems left to spontaneous evolution cannot decrease, as they always tend toward a state of thermodynamic
equilibrium where the entropy is highest at the given internal energy.[4] An increase in the combined entropy of
system and surroundings accounts for the irreversibility of natural processes, often referred to in the concept of the
arrow of time.[5][6]

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. The second law has been expressed in many ways. Its first formulation,
which preceded the proper definition of entropy and was based on caloric theory, is Carnot's theorem, formulated by
the French scientist Sadi Carnot, who in 1824 showed that the efficiency of conversion of heat to work in a heat
engine has an upper limit.[7][8] The first rigorous definition of the second law based on the concept of entropy came
from German scientist Rudolf Clausius in the 1850s and included his statement that heat can never pass from a colder
to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.

The second law of thermodynamics allows the definition of the concept of thermodynamic temperature, but this has
been formally delegated to the zeroth law of thermodynamics.

Introduction
The first law of thermodynamics provides the definition of the internal energy of a
thermodynamic system, and expresses its change for a closed system in terms of work
and heat.[9] It can be linked to the law of conservation of energy.[10] Conceptually, the
first law describes the fundamental principle that systems do not consume or 'use up'
energy, that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but is simply converted from one
form to another.

The second law is concerned with the direction of natural processes.[11] It asserts that
a natural process runs only in one sense, and is not reversible. That is, the state of a
natural system itself can be reversed, but not without increasing the entropy of the
system's surroundings, that is, both the state of the system plus the state of its
surroundings cannot be together, fully reversed, without implying the destruction of
entropy. Heat flowing from hot water
to cold water
For example, when a path for conduction or radiation is made available, heat always
flows spontaneously from a hotter to a colder body. Such phenomena are accounted
for in terms of entropy change.[12][13] A heat pump can reverse this heat flow, but the reversal process and the original
process, both cause entropy production, thereby increasing the entropy of the system's surroundings. If an isolated
system containing distinct subsystems is held initially in internal thermodynamic equilibrium by internal partitioning
by impermeable walls between the subsystems, and then some operation makes the walls more permeable, then the
system spontaneously evolves to reach a final new internal thermodynamic equilibrium, and its total entropy, ,
increases.

In a reversible or quasi-static, idealized process of transfer of energy as heat to a closed thermodynamic system of
interest, (which allows the entry or exit of energy – but not transfer of matter), from an auxiliary thermodynamic
system, an infinitesimal increment ( ) in the entropy of the system of interest is defined to result from an
infinitesimal transfer of heat ( ) to the system of interest, divided by the common thermodynamic temperature
of the system of interest and the auxiliary thermodynamic system:[14]

Different notations are used for an infinitesimal amount of heat and infinitesimal change of entropy because
entropy is a function of state, while heat, like work, is not.

For an actually possible infinitesimal process without exchange of mass with the surroundings, the second law
requires that the increment in system entropy fulfills the inequality[15][16]

This is because a general process for this case (no mass exchange between the system and its surroundings) may
include work being done on the system by its surroundings, which can have frictional or viscous effects inside the
system, because a chemical reaction may be in progress, or because heat transfer actually occurs only irreversibly,
driven by a finite difference between the system temperature (T) and the temperature of the surroundings
(Tsurr).[17][18]

The equality still applies for pure heat flow (only heat flow, no change in chemical composition and mass),

which is the basis of the accurate determination of the absolute entropy of pure substances from measured heat
capacity curves and entropy changes at phase transitions, i.e. by calorimetry.[19][15]

Introducing a set of internal variables to describe the deviation of a thermodynamic system from a chemical
equilibrium state in physical equilibrium (with the required well-defined uniform pressure P and temperature T), one
can record the equality

The second term represents work of internal variables that can be perturbed by external influences, but the system
cannot perform any positive work via internal variables. This statement introduces the impossibility of the reversion
of evolution of the thermodynamic system in time and can be considered as a formulation of the second principle of
thermodynamics – the formulation, which is, of course, equivalent to the formulation of the principle in terms of
entropy.[20][21]

The zeroth law of thermodynamics in its usual short statement allows recognition that two bodies in a relation of
thermal equilibrium have the same temperature, especially that a test body has the same temperature as a reference
thermometric body.[22] For a body in thermal equilibrium with another, there are indefinitely many empirical
temperature scales, in general respectively depending on the properties of a particular reference thermometric body.
The second law allows a distinguished temperature scale, which defines an absolute, thermodynamic temperature,
independent of the properties of any particular reference thermometric body.[23][24]

Various statements of the law

The second law of thermodynamics may be expressed in many specific ways,[25] the most prominent classical
statements[26] being the statement by Rudolf Clausius (1854), the statement by Lord Kelvin (1851), and the statement
in axiomatic thermodynamics by Constantin Carathéodory (1909). These statements cast the law in general physical
terms citing the impossibility of certain processes. The Clausius and the Kelvin statements have been shown to be
equivalent.[27]

Carnot's principle
The historical origin[28] of the second law of thermodynamics was in Sadi Carnot's theoretical analysis of the flow of
heat in steam engines (1824). The centerpiece of that analysis, now known as a Carnot engine, is an ideal heat engine
fictively operated in the limiting mode of extreme slowness known as quasi-static, so that the heat and work transfers
are between subsystems that are always in their own internal states of thermodynamic equilibrium. It represents the
theoretical maximum efficiency of a heat engine operating between any two given thermal or heat reservoirs at
different temperatures. Carnot's principle was recognized by Carnot at a time when the caloric theory represented the
dominant understanding of the nature of heat, before the recognition of the first law of thermodynamics, and before
the mathematical expression of the concept of entropy. Interpreted in the light of the first law, Carnot's analysis is
physically equivalent to the second law of thermodynamics, and remains valid today. Some samples from his book
are:

...wherever there exists a difference of temperature, motive power can be produced.[29]

The production of motive power is then due in steam engines not to an actual consumption of
caloric, but to its transportation from a warm body to a cold body ...[30]
The motive power of heat is independent of the agents employed to realize it; its quantity is
fixed solely by the temperatures of the bodies between which is effected, finally, the transfer of
caloric.[31]

In modern terms, Carnot's principle may be stated more precisely:

The efficiency of a quasi-static or reversible Carnot cycle depends only on the temperatures of the
two heat reservoirs, and is the same, whatever the working substance. A Carnot engine operated in
this way is the most efficient possible heat engine using those two temperatures.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Clausius statement
The German scientist Rudolf Clausius laid the foundation for the second law of thermodynamics in 1850 by
examining the relation between heat transfer and work.[38] His formulation of the second law, which was published in
German in 1854, is known as the Clausius statement:

Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith,
occurring at the same time.[39]

The statement by Clausius uses the concept of 'passage of heat'. As is usual in thermodynamic discussions, this means
'net transfer of energy as heat', and does not refer to contributory transfers one way and the other.
Heat cannot spontaneously flow from cold regions to hot regions without external work being performed on the
system, which is evident from ordinary experience of refrigeration, for example. In a refrigerator, heat is transferred
from cold to hot, but only when forced by an external agent, the refrigeration system.

Kelvin statements
Lord Kelvin expressed the second law in several wordings.

It is impossible for a self-acting machine, unaided by any external agency, to convey heat from
one body to another at a higher temperature.
It is impossible, by means of inanimate material agency, to derive mechanical effect from any
portion of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding
objects.[40]

Equivalence of the Clausius and the Kelvin statements

Suppose there is an engine violating the Kelvin statement: i.e., one that drains
heat and converts it completely into work (the drained heat is fully converted
to work) in a cyclic fashion without any other result. Now pair it with a
reversed Carnot engine as shown by the right figure. The efficiency of a
normal heat engine is η and so the efficiency of the reversed heat engine is 1/η.
The net and sole effect of the combined pair of engines is to transfer heat
from the cooler reservoir to the hotter one, which violates
the Clausius statement. This is a consequence of the first law of
thermodynamics, as for the total system's energy to remain the same;
Derive Kelvin Statement from
, so therefore
Clausius Statement
, where (1) the sign convention of heat is used in which

heat entering into (leaving from) an engine is positive (negative) and (2) is obtained by the definition of efficiency

of the engine when the engine operation is not reversed. Thus a violation of the Kelvin statement implies a violation
of the Clausius statement, i.e. the Clausius statement implies the Kelvin statement. We can prove in a similar manner
that the Kelvin statement implies the Clausius statement, and hence the two are equivalent.

Planck's proposition
Planck offered the following proposition as derived directly from experience. This is sometimes regarded as his
statement of the second law, but he regarded it as a starting point for the derivation of the second law.

It is impossible to construct an engine which will work in a complete cycle, and produce no
effect except the production of work and cooling of a heat reservoir.[41][42]

Relation between Kelvin's statement and Planck's proposition

It is almost customary in textbooks to speak of the "Kelvin–Planck statement" of the law, as for example in the text by
ter Haar and Wergeland.[43] This version, also known as the heat engine statement, of the second law states that

It is impossible to devise a cyclically operating device, the sole effect of which is to absorb
energy in the form of heat from a single thermal reservoir and to deliver an equivalent amount
of work.[2]

Planck's statement
Max Planck stated the second law as follows.
 Every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all
bodies taking part in the process is increased. In the limit, i.e. for reversible processes, the sum
of the entropies remains unchanged.[44][45][46]

Rather like Planck's statement is that of George Uhlenbeck and G. W. Ford for irreversible phenomena.

... in an irreversible or spontaneous change from one equilibrium state to another (as for
example the equalization of temperature of two bodies A and B, when brought in contact) the
entropy always increases.[47]

Principle of Carathéodory
Constantin Carathéodory formulated thermodynamics on a purely mathematical axiomatic foundation. His statement
of the second law is known as the Principle of Carathéodory, which may be formulated as follows:[48]

In every neighborhood of any state S of an adiabatically enclosed system there are states inaccessible
from S.[49]

With this formulation, he described the concept of adiabatic accessibility for the first time and provided the
foundation for a new subfield of classical thermodynamics, often called geometrical thermodynamics. It follows from
Carathéodory's principle that quantity of energy quasi-statically transferred as heat is a holonomic process function, in
other words, .[50]

Though it is almost customary in textbooks to say that Carathéodory's principle expresses the second law and to treat
it as equivalent to the Clausius or to the Kelvin-Planck statements, such is not the case. To get all the content of the
second law, Carathéodory's principle needs to be supplemented by Planck's principle, that isochoric work always
increases the internal energy of a closed system that was initially in its own internal thermodynamic
equilibrium.[18][51][52][53]

Planck's principle
In 1926, Max Planck wrote an important paper on the basics of thermodynamics.[52][54] He indicated the principle

The internal energy of a closed system is increased by an adiabatic process, throughout the
duration of which, the volume of the system remains constant.[18][51]

This formulation does not mention heat and does not mention temperature, nor even entropy, and does not necessarily
implicitly rely on those concepts, but it implies the content of the second law. A closely related statement is that
"Frictional pressure never does positive work."[55] Planck wrote: "The production of heat by friction is
irreversible."[56][57]

Not mentioning entropy, this principle of Planck is stated in physical terms. It is very closely related to the Kelvin
statement given just above.[58] It is relevant that for a system at constant volume and mole numbers, the entropy is a
monotonic function of the internal energy. Nevertheless, this principle of Planck is not actually Planck's preferred
statement of the second law, which is quoted above, in a previous sub-section of the present section of this present
article, and relies on the concept of entropy.

A statement that in a sense is complementary to Planck's principle is made by Claus Borgnakke and Richard E.
Sonntag. They do not offer it as a full statement of the second law:

... there is only one way in which the entropy of a [closed] system can be decreased, and that is
to transfer heat from the system.[59]
Differing from Planck's just foregoing principle, this one is explicitly in terms of entropy change. Removal of matter
from a system can also decrease its entropy.

Relating the second law to the definition of temperature

The second law has been shown to be equivalent to the internal energy U defined as a convex function of the other
extensive properties of the system.[60] That is, when a system is described by stating its internal energy U, an
extensive variable, as a function of its entropy S, volume V, and mol number N, i.e. U = U (S, V, N), then the
temperature is equal to the partial derivative of the internal energy with respect to the entropy[61] (essentially
equivalent to the first TdS equation for V and N held constant):

Second law statements, such as the Clausius inequality, involving radiative fluxes
The Clausius inequality, as well as some other statements of the second law, must be re-stated to have general
applicability for all forms of heat transfer, i.e. scenarios involving radiative fluxes. For example, the integrand (đQ/T)
of the Clausius expression applies to heat conduction and convection, and the case of ideal infinitesimal blackbody
radiation (BR) transfer, but does not apply to most radiative transfer scenarios and in some cases has no physical
meaning whatsoever. Consequently, the Clausius inequality was re-stated[62] so that it is applicable to cycles with
processes involving any form of heat transfer. The entropy transfer with radiative fluxes ( ) is taken
separately from that due to heat transfer by conduction and convection ( ), where the temperature is evaluated at
the system boundary where the heat transfer occurs. The modified Clausius inequality, for all heat transfer scenarios,
can then be expressed as,

In a nutshell, the Clausius inequality is saying that when a cycle is completed, the change in the state property S will
be zero, so the entropy that was produced during the cycle must have transferred out of the system by heat transfer.
The (or đ) indicates a path dependent integration.

Due to the inherent emission of radiation from all matter, most entropy flux calculations involve incident, reflected
and emitted radiative fluxes. The energy and entropy of unpolarized blackbody thermal radiation, is calculated using
the spectral energy and entropy radiance expressions derived by Max Planck[63] using equilibrium statistical
mechanics,

where c is the speed of light, k is the Boltzmann constant, h is the Planck constant, ν is frequency, and the quantities
Kv and Lv are the energy and entropy fluxes per unit frequency, area, and solid angle. In deriving this blackbody
spectral entropy radiance, with the goal of deriving the blackbody energy formula, Planck postulated that the energy
of a photon was quantized (partly to simplify the mathematics), thereby starting quantum theory.

A non-equilibrium statistical mechanics approach has also been used to obtain the same result as Planck, indicating it
has wider significance and represents a non-equilibrium entropy.[64] A plot of Kv versus frequency (v) for various
values of temperature (T) gives a family of blackbody radiation energy spectra, and likewise for the entropy spectra.
For non-blackbody radiation (NBR) emission fluxes, the spectral entropy radiance Lv is found by substituting Kv
spectral energy radiance data into the Lv expression (noting that emitted and reflected entropy fluxes are, in general,
not independent). For the emission of NBR, including graybody radiation (GR), the resultant emitted entropy flux, or
radiance L, has a higher ratio of entropy-to-energy (L/K), than that of BR. That is, the entropy flux of NBR emission
is farther removed from the conduction and convection q/T result, than that for BR emission.[65] This observation is
consistent with Max Planck's blackbody radiation energy and entropy formulas and is consistent with the fact that
blackbody radiation emission represents the maximum emission of entropy for all materials with the same
temperature, as well as the maximum entropy emission for all radiation with the same energy radiance.

Generalized conceptual statement of the second law principle

Second law analysis is valuable in scientific and engineering analysis in that it provides a number of benefits over
energy analysis alone, including the basis for determining energy quality (exergy content[66][67][68]), understanding
fundamental physical phenomena, and improving performance evaluation and optimization. As a result, a conceptual
statement of the principle is very useful in engineering analysis. Thermodynamic systems can be categorized by the
four combinations of either entropy (S) up or down, and uniformity (Y) – between system and its environment – up or
down. This 'special' category of processes, category IV, is characterized by movement in the direction of low disorder
and low uniformity, counteracting the second law tendency towards uniformity and disorder.[69]

The second law can be conceptually stated[69] as follows: Matter and energy
have the tendency to reach a state of uniformity or internal and external
equilibrium, a state of maximum disorder (entropy). Real non-equilibrium
processes always produce entropy, causing increased disorder in the universe,
while idealized reversible processes produce no entropy and no process is
known to exist that destroys entropy. The tendency of a system to approach
Four categories of processes given
uniformity may be counteracted, and the system may become more ordered or entropy up or down and uniformity
complex, by the combination of two things, a work or exergy source and some up or down
form of instruction or intelligence. Where 'exergy' is the thermal, mechanical,
electric or chemical work potential of an energy source or flow, and
'instruction or intelligence', although subjective, is in the context of the set of category IV processes.

Consider a category IV example of robotic manufacturing and assembly of vehicles in a factory. The robotic
machinery requires electrical work input and instructions, but when completed, the manufactured products have less
uniformity with their surroundings, or more complexity (higher order) relative to the raw materials they were made
from. Thus, system entropy or disorder decreases while the tendency towards uniformity between the system and its
environment is counteracted. In this example, the instructions, as well as the source of work may be internal or
external to the system, and they may or may not cross the system boundary. To illustrate, the instructions may be pre-
coded and the electrical work may be stored in an energy storage system on-site. Alternatively, the control of the
machinery may be by remote operation over a communications network, while the electric work is supplied to the
factory from the local electric grid. In addition, humans may directly play, in whole or in part, the role that the robotic
machinery plays in manufacturing. In this case, instructions may be involved, but intelligence is either directly
responsible, or indirectly responsible, for the direction or application of work in such a way as to counteract the
tendency towards disorder and uniformity.

There are also situations where the entropy spontaneously decreases by means of energy and entropy transfer. When
thermodynamic constraints are not present, spontaneously energy or mass, as well as accompanying entropy, may be
transferred out of a system in a progress to reach external equilibrium or uniformity in intensive properties of the
system with its surroundings. This occurs spontaneously because the energy or mass transferred from the system to its
surroundings results in a higher entropy in the surroundings, that is, it results in higher overall entropy of the system
plus its surroundings. Note that this transfer of entropy requires dis-equilibrium in properties, such as a temperature
difference. One example of this is the cooling crystallization of water that can occur when the system's surroundings
are below freezing temperatures. Unconstrained heat transfer can spontaneously occur, leading to water molecules
freezing into a crystallized structure of reduced disorder (sticking together in a certain order due to molecular
attraction). The entropy of the system decreases, but the system approaches uniformity with its surroundings
(category III).
On the other hand, consider the refrigeration of water in a warm environment. Due to refrigeration, as heat is
extracted from the water, the temperature and entropy of the water decreases, as the system moves further away from
uniformity with its warm surroundings or environment (category IV). The main point, take-away, is that refrigeration
not only requires a source of work, it requires designed equipment, as well as pre-coded or direct operational
intelligence or instructions to achieve the desired refrigeration effect.

Corollaries

Perpetual motion of the second kind

Before the establishment of the second law, many people who were interested in inventing a perpetual motion
machine had tried to circumvent the restrictions of first law of thermodynamics by extracting the massive internal
energy of the environment as the power of the machine. Such a machine is called a "perpetual motion machine of the
second kind". The second law declared the impossibility of such machines.

Carnot's theorem
Carnot's theorem (1824) is a principle that limits the maximum efficiency for any possible engine. The efficiency
solely depends on the temperature difference between the hot and cold thermal reservoirs. Carnot's theorem states:

All irreversible heat engines between two heat reservoirs are less efficient than a Carnot engine
operating between the same reservoirs.
All reversible heat engines between two heat reservoirs are equally efficient with a Carnot engine
operating between the same reservoirs.
In his ideal model, the heat of caloric converted into work could be reinstated by reversing the motion of the cycle, a
concept subsequently known as thermodynamic reversibility. Carnot, however, further postulated that some caloric is
lost, not being converted to mechanical work. Hence, no real heat engine could realize the Carnot cycle's reversibility
and was condemned to be less efficient.

Though formulated in terms of caloric (see the obsolete caloric theory), rather than entropy, this was an early insight
into the second law.

Clausius inequality
The Clausius theorem (1854) states that in a cyclic process

The equality holds in the reversible case[70] and the strict inequality holds in the irreversible case, with Tsurr as the
temperature of the heat bath (surroundings) here. The reversible case is used to introduce the state function entropy.
This is because in cyclic processes the variation of a state function is zero from state functionality.

Thermodynamic temperature
For an arbitrary heat engine, the efficiency is:

(1)
where Wn is the net work done by the engine per cycle, qH > 0 is the heat added to the engine from a hot reservoir,
and qC = −| qC | < 0[71] is waste heat given off to a cold reservoir from the engine. Thus the efficiency depends only on
the ratio | qC | / | qH |.

Carnot's theorem states that all reversible engines operating between the same heat reservoirs are equally efficient.
Thus, any reversible heat engine operating between temperatures TH and TC must have the same efficiency, that is to
say, the efficiency is a function of temperatures only:

(2)

In addition, a reversible heat engine operating between temperatures T1 and T3 must have the same efficiency as one
consisting of two cycles, one between T1 and another (intermediate) temperature T2, and the second between T2 and
T3, where T1 > T2 > T3. This is because, if a part of the two cycle engine is hidden such that it is recognized as an
engine between the reservoirs at the temperatures T1 and T3, then the efficiency of this engine must be same to the
other engine at the same reservoirs. If we choose engines such that work done by the one cycle engine and the two
cycle engine are same, then the efficiency of each heat engine is written as the below.

Here, the engine 1 is the one cycle engine, and the engines 2 and 3 make the two cycle engine where there is the
intermediate reservoir at T2. We also have used the fact that the heat passes through the intermediate thermal
reservoir at without losing its energy. (I.e., is not lost during its passage through the reservoir at .) This fact
can be proved by the following.

In order to have the consistency in the last equation, the heat flown from the engine 2 to the intermediate reservoir
must be equal to the heat flown out from the reservoir to the engine 3.

Then

Now consider the case where is a fixed reference temperature: the temperature of the triple point of water as
273.16 K; . Then for any T2 and T3,
Therefore, if thermodynamic temperature T* is defined by

then the function f, viewed as a function of thermodynamic temperatures, is simply

and the reference temperature T1* = 273.16 K × f(T1,T1) = 273.16 K. (Any reference temperature and any positive
numerical value could be used – the choice here corresponds to the Kelvin scale.)

Entropy
According to the Clausius equality, for a reversible process

That means the line integral is path independent for reversible processes.

So we can define a state function S called entropy, which for a reversible process or for pure heat transfer satisfies

With this we can only obtain the difference of entropy by integrating the above formula. To obtain the absolute value,
we need the third law of thermodynamics, which states that S = 0 at absolute zero for perfect crystals.

For any irreversible process, since entropy is a state function, we can always connect the initial and terminal states
with an imaginary reversible process and integrating on that path to calculate the difference in entropy.

Now reverse the reversible process and combine it with the said irreversible process. Applying the Clausius inequality
on this loop, with Tsurr as the temperature of the surroundings,

Thus,

where the equality holds if the transformation is reversible. If the process is an adiabatic process, then , so
.

Energy, available useful work

An important and revealing idealized special case is to consider applying the second law to the scenario of an isolated
system (called the total system or universe), made up of two parts: a sub-system of interest, and the sub-system's
surroundings. These surroundings are imagined to be so large that they can be considered as an unlimited heat
reservoir at temperature TR and pressure PR – so that no matter how much heat is transferred to (or from) the sub-
system, the temperature of the surroundings will remain TR; and no matter how much the volume of the sub-system
expands (or contracts), the pressure of the surroundings will remain PR.
Whatever changes to dS and dSR occur in the entropies of the sub-system and the surroundings individually, the
entropy Stot of the isolated total system must not decrease according to the second law of thermodynamics:

According to the first law of thermodynamics, the change dU in the internal energy of the sub-system is the sum of
the heat δq added to the sub-system, minus any work δw done by the sub-system, plus any net chemical energy
entering the sub-system d ΣμiRNi, so that:

where μiR are the chemical potentials of chemical species in the external surroundings.

Now the heat leaving the reservoir and entering the sub-system is

where we have first used the definition of entropy in classical thermodynamics (alternatively, in statistical
thermodynamics, the relation between entropy change, temperature and absorbed heat can be derived); and then the
second law inequality from above.

It therefore follows that any net work δw done by the sub-system must obey

It is useful to separate the work δw done by the subsystem into the useful work δwu that can be done by the sub-
system, over and beyond the work pR dV done merely by the sub-system expanding against the surrounding external
pressure, giving the following relation for the useful work (exergy) that can be done:

It is convenient to define the right-hand-side as the exact derivative of a thermodynamic potential, called the
availability or exergy E of the subsystem,

The second law therefore implies that for any process which can be considered as divided simply into a subsystem,
and an unlimited temperature and pressure reservoir with which it is in contact,

i.e. the change in the subsystem's exergy plus the useful work done by the subsystem (or, the change in the
subsystem's exergy less any work, additional to that done by the pressure reservoir, done on the system) must be less
than or equal to zero.

In sum, if a proper infinite-reservoir-like reference state is chosen as the system surroundings in the real world, then
the second law predicts a decrease in E for an irreversible process and no change for a reversible process.

is equivalent to

This expression together with the associated reference state permits a design engineer working at the macroscopic
scale (above the thermodynamic limit) to utilize the second law without directly measuring or considering entropy
change in a total isolated system (see also Process engineer). Those changes have already been considered by the
assumption that the system under consideration can reach equilibrium with the reference state without altering the
reference state. An efficiency for a process or collection of processes that compares it to the reversible ideal may also
be found (see Exergy efficiency).

This approach to the second law is widely utilized in engineering practice, environmental accounting, systems
ecology, and other disciplines.

Direction of spontaneous processes

The second law determines whether a proposed physical or chemical process is forbidden or may occur
spontaneously. For isolated systems, no energy is provided by the surroundings and the second law requires that the
entropy of the system alone must increase: ΔS > 0. Examples of spontaneous physical processes in isolated systems
include the following:

1) Heat can be transferred from a region of higher temperature to a lower temperature (but not the
reverse).
2) Mechanical energy can be converted to thermal energy (but not the reverse).
3) A solute can move from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration (but not
the reverse).
However, for some non-isolated systems which can exchange energy with their surroundings, the surroundings
exchange enough heat with the system, or do sufficient work on the system, so that the processes occur in the
opposite direction. This is possible provided the total entropy change of the system plus the surroundings is positive
as required by the second law: ΔStot = ΔS + ΔSR > 0. For the three examples given above:

1) Heat can be transferred from a region of lower temperature to a higher temperature in a refrigerator
or in a heat pump. These machines must provide sufficient work to the system.
2) Thermal energy can be converted to mechanical work in a heat engine, if sufficient heat is also
expelled to the surroundings.
3) A solute can move from a region of lower concentration to a region of higher concentration in the
biochemical process of active transport, if sufficient work is provided by a concentration gradient of a
chemical such as ATP or by an electrochemical gradient.

Second law in chemical thermodynamics

For a spontaneous chemical process in a closed system at constant temperature and pressure without non-PV work,
the Clausius inequality ΔS > Q/Tsurr transforms into a condition for the change in Gibbs free energy

or dG < 0. For a similar process at constant temperature and volume, the change in Helmholtz free energy must be
negative, . Thus, a negative value of the change in free energy (G or A) is a necessary condition for a process
to be spontaneous. This is the most useful form of the second law of thermodynamics in chemistry, where free-energy
changes can be calculated from tabulated enthalpies of formation and standard molar entropies of reactants and
products.[19][15] The chemical equilibrium condition at constant T and p without electrical work is dG = 0.

History
The first theory of the conversion of heat into mechanical work is due to Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot in 1824. He
was the first to realize correctly that the efficiency of this conversion depends on the difference of temperature
between an engine and its surroundings.
Recognizing the significance of James Prescott Joule's work on the conservation of
energy, Rudolf Clausius was the first to formulate the second law during 1850, in this
form: heat does not flow spontaneously from cold to hot bodies. While common
knowledge now, this was contrary to the caloric theory of heat popular at the time,
which considered heat as a fluid. From there he was able to infer the principle of Sadi
Carnot and the definition of entropy (1865).

Established during the 19th century, the Kelvin-Planck statement of the second law
says, "It is impossible for any device that operates on a cycle to receive heat from a
single reservoir and produce a net amount of work." This statement was shown to be
equivalent to the statement of Clausius.

The ergodic hypothesis is also important for the Boltzmann approach. It says that, over Nicolas Léonard Sadi
long periods of time, the time spent in some region of the phase space of microstates Carnot in the traditional
uniform of a student of the
with the same energy is proportional to the volume of this region, i.e. that all
École Polytechnique
accessible microstates are equally probable over a long period of time. Equivalently, it
says that time average and average over the statistical ensemble are the same.

There is a traditional doctrine, starting with Clausius, that entropy can be understood in terms of molecular 'disorder'
within a macroscopic system. This doctrine is obsolescent.[72][73][74]

Account given by Clausius

In 1865, the German physicist Rudolf Clausius stated what he called the "second
fundamental theorem in the mechanical theory of heat" in the following form:[75]

where Q is heat, T is temperature and N is the "equivalence-value" of all

uncompensated transformations involved in a cyclical process. Later, in 1865,
Clausius would come to define "equivalence-value" as entropy. On the heels of this
definition, that same year, the most famous version of the second law was read in a
presentation at the Philosophical Society of Zurich on April 24, in which, in the end of
his presentation, Clausius concludes:

The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. Rudolf Clausius

This statement is the best-known phrasing of the second law. Because of the looseness
of its language, e.g. universe, as well as lack of specific conditions, e.g. open, closed, or isolated, many people take
this simple statement to mean that the second law of thermodynamics applies virtually to every subject imaginable.
This is not true; this statement is only a simplified version of a more extended and precise description.

In terms of time variation, the mathematical statement of the second law for an isolated system undergoing an
arbitrary transformation is:

where

S is the entropy of the system and

t is time.
The equality sign applies after equilibration. An alternative way of formulating of the second law for isolated systems
is:

with

with the sum of the rate of entropy production by all processes inside the system. The advantage of this
formulation is that it shows the effect of the entropy production. The rate of entropy production is a very important
concept since it determines (limits) the efficiency of thermal machines. Multiplied with ambient temperature it
gives the so-called dissipated energy .

The expression of the second law for closed systems (so, allowing heat exchange and moving boundaries, but not
exchange of matter) is:

with

Here,

is the heat flow into the system

is the temperature at the point where the heat enters the system.

The equality sign holds in the case that only reversible processes take place inside the system. If irreversible
processes take place (which is the case in real systems in operation) the >-sign holds. If heat is supplied to the system
at several places we have to take the algebraic sum of the corresponding terms.

For open systems (also allowing exchange of matter):

with

Here, is the flow of entropy into the system associated with the flow of matter entering the system. It should not be
confused with the time derivative of the entropy. If matter is supplied at several places we have to take the algebraic
sum of these contributions.

Statistical mechanics
Statistical mechanics gives an explanation for the second law by postulating that a material is composed of atoms and
molecules which are in constant motion. A particular set of positions and velocities for each particle in the system is
called a microstate of the system and because of the constant motion, the system is constantly changing its microstate.
Statistical mechanics postulates that, in equilibrium, each microstate that the system might be in is equally likely to
occur, and when this assumption is made, it leads directly to the conclusion that the second law must hold in a
statistical sense. That is, the second law will hold on average, with a statistical variation on the order of 1/√N where
N is the number of particles in the system. For everyday (macroscopic) situations, the probability that the second law
will be violated is practically zero. However, for systems with a small number of particles, thermodynamic
parameters, including the entropy, may show significant statistical deviations from that predicted by the second law.
Classical thermodynamic theory does not deal with these statistical variations.

Derivation from statistical mechanics

The first mechanical argument of the Kinetic theory of gases that molecular collisions entail an equalization of
temperatures and hence a tendency towards equilibrium was due to James Clerk Maxwell in 1860;[76] Ludwig
Boltzmann with his H-theorem of 1872 also argued that due to collisions gases should over time tend toward the
Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution.

Due to Loschmidt's paradox, derivations of the second law have to make an assumption regarding the past, namely
that the system is uncorrelated at some time in the past; this allows for simple probabilistic treatment. This
assumption is usually thought as a boundary condition, and thus the second law is ultimately a consequence of the
initial conditions somewhere in the past, probably at the beginning of the universe (the Big Bang), though other
scenarios have also been suggested.[77][78][79]

Given these assumptions, in statistical mechanics, the second law is not a postulate, rather it is a consequence of the
fundamental postulate, also known as the equal prior probability postulate, so long as one is clear that simple
probability arguments are applied only to the future, while for the past there are auxiliary sources of information
which tell us that it was low entropy. The first part of the second law, which states that the entropy of a thermally
isolated system can only increase, is a trivial consequence of the equal prior probability postulate, if we restrict the
notion of the entropy to systems in thermal equilibrium. The entropy of an isolated system in thermal equilibrium
containing an amount of energy of is:

where is the number of quantum states in a small interval between and . Here is a
macroscopically small energy interval that is kept fixed. Strictly speaking this means that the entropy depends on the
choice of . However, in the thermodynamic limit (i.e. in the limit of infinitely large system size), the specific
entropy (entropy per unit volume or per unit mass) does not depend on .

Suppose we have an isolated system whose macroscopic state is specified by a number of variables. These
macroscopic variables can, e.g., refer to the total volume, the positions of pistons in the system, etc. Then will
depend on the values of these variables. If a variable is not fixed, (e.g. we do not clamp a piston in a certain position),
then because all the accessible states are equally likely in equilibrium, the free variable in equilibrium will be such
that is maximized at the given energy of the isolated system[80] as that is the most probable situation in
equilibrium.

If the variable was initially fixed to some value then upon release and when the new equilibrium has been reached,
the fact the variable will adjust itself so that is maximized, implies that the entropy will have increased or it will
have stayed the same (if the value at which the variable was fixed happened to be the equilibrium value). Suppose we
start from an equilibrium situation and we suddenly remove a constraint on a variable. Then right after we do this,
there are a number of accessible microstates, but equilibrium has not yet been reached, so the actual probabilities of
the system being in some accessible state are not yet equal to the prior probability of . We have already seen that
in the final equilibrium state, the entropy will have increased or have stayed the same relative to the previous
equilibrium state. Boltzmann's H-theorem, however, proves that the quantity H increases monotonically as a function
of time during the intermediate out of equilibrium state.

Derivation of the entropy change for reversible processes

The second part of the second law states that the entropy change of a system undergoing a reversible process is given
by:

where the temperature is defined as:

See Microcanonical ensemble for the justification for this definition. Suppose that the system has some external
parameter, x, that can be changed. In general, the energy eigenstates of the system will depend on x. According to the
adiabatic theorem of quantum mechanics, in the limit of an infinitely slow change of the system's Hamiltonian, the
system will stay in the same energy eigenstate and thus change its energy according to the change in energy of the
energy eigenstate it is in.

The generalized force, X, corresponding to the external variable x is defined such that is the work performed by
the system if x is increased by an amount dx. For example, if x is the volume, then X is the pressure. The generalized
force for a system known to be in energy eigenstate is given by:

Since the system can be in any energy eigenstate within an interval of , we define the generalized force for the
system as the expectation value of the above expression:

To evaluate the average, we partition the energy eigenstates by counting how many of them have a value for

within a range between and . Calling this number , we have:

The average defining the generalized force can now be written:

We can relate this to the derivative of the entropy with respect to x at constant energy E as follows. Suppose we
change x to x + dx. Then will change because the energy eigenstates depend on x, causing energy eigenstates to
move into or out of the range between and . Let's focus again on the energy eigenstates for which lies
within the range between and . Since these energy eigenstates increase in energy by Y dx, all such energy
eigenstates that are in the interval ranging from E – Y dx to E move from below E to above E. There are

such energy eigenstates. If , all these energy eigenstates will move into the range between and
and contribute to an increase in . The number of energy eigenstates that move from below to above
is given by . The difference

is thus the net contribution to the increase in . If Y dx is larger than there will be the energy eigenstates that
move from below E to above . They are counted in both and , therefore the above
expression is also valid in that case.

Expressing the above expression as a derivative with respect to E and summing over Y yields the expression:
The logarithmic derivative of with respect to x is thus given by:

The first term is intensive, i.e. it does not scale with system size. In contrast, the last term scales as the inverse system
size and will thus vanish in the thermodynamic limit. We have thus found that:

Combining this with

gives:

Derivation for systems described by the canonical ensemble

If a system is in thermal contact with a heat bath at some temperature T then, in equilibrium, the probability
distribution over the energy eigenvalues are given by the canonical ensemble:

Here Z is a factor that normalizes the sum of all the probabilities to 1, this function is known as the partition function.
We now consider an infinitesimal reversible change in the temperature and in the external parameters on which the
energy levels depend. It follows from the general formula for the entropy:

that

Inserting the formula for for the canonical ensemble in here gives:

Initial conditions at the Big Bang

As elaborated above, it is thought that the second law of thermodynamics is a result of the very low-entropy initial
conditions at the Big Bang. From a statistical point of view, these were very special conditions. On the other hand,
they were quite simple, as the universe - or at least the part thereof from which the observable universe developed -
seems to have been extremely uniform.[81]

This may seem somewhat paradoxical, since in many physical systems uniform conditions (e.g. mixed rather than
separated gases) have high entropy. The paradox is solved once realizing that gravitational systems have negative heat
capacity, so that when gravity is important, uniform conditions (e.g. gas of uniform density) in fact have lower
entropy compared to non-uniform ones (e.g. black holes in empty space).[82] Yet another approach is that the universe
had high (or even maximal) entropy given its size, but as the universe grew it rapidly came out of thermodynamic
equilibrium, its entropy only slightly increased compared to the increase in maximal possible entropy, and thus it has
arrived at a very low entropy when compared to the much larger possible maximum given its later size.[83]

As for the reason why initial conditions were such, one suggestion is that cosmological inflation was enough to wipe
off non-smoothness, while another is that the universe was created spontaneously where the mechanism of creation
implies low-entropy initial conditions.[84]

Living organisms
There are two principal ways of formulating thermodynamics, (a) through passages from one state of thermodynamic
equilibrium to another, and (b) through cyclic processes, by which the system is left unchanged, while the total
entropy of the surroundings is increased. These two ways help to understand the processes of life. The
thermodynamics of living organisms has been considered by many authors, including Erwin Schrödinger (in his book
What is Life?) and Léon Brillouin.[85]

To a fair approximation, living organisms may be considered as examples of (b). Approximately, an animal's physical
state cycles by the day, leaving the animal nearly unchanged. Animals take in food, water, and oxygen, and, as a result
of metabolism, give out breakdown products and heat. Plants take in radiative energy from the sun, which may be
regarded as heat, and carbon dioxide and water. They give out oxygen. In this way they grow. Eventually they die,
and their remains rot away, turning mostly back into carbon dioxide and water. This can be regarded as a cyclic
process. Overall, the sunlight is from a high temperature source, the sun, and its energy is passed to a lower
temperature sink, i.e. radiated into space. This is an increase of entropy of the surroundings of the plant. Thus animals
and plants obey the second law of thermodynamics, considered in terms of cyclic processes.

Furthermore, the ability of living organisms to grow and increase in complexity, as well as to form correlations with
their environment in the form of adaption and memory, is not opposed to the second law – rather, it is akin to general
results following from it: Under some definitions, an increase in entropy also results in an increase in complexity,[86]
and for a finite system interacting with finite reservoirs, an increase in entropy is equivalent to an increase in
correlations between the system and the reservoirs.[87]

Living organisms may be considered as open systems, because matter passes into and out from them.
Thermodynamics of open systems is currently often considered in terms of passages from one state of thermodynamic
equilibrium to another, or in terms of flows in the approximation of local thermodynamic equilibrium. The problem
for living organisms may be further simplified by the approximation of assuming a steady state with unchanging
flows. General principles of entropy production for such approximations are a subject of ongoing research.

Gravitational systems
Commonly, systems for which gravity is not important have a positive heat capacity, meaning that their temperature
rises with their internal energy. Therefore, when energy flows from a high-temperature object to a low-temperature
object, the source temperature decreases while the sink temperature is increased; hence temperature differences tend
to diminish over time.
This is not always the case for systems in which the gravitational force is important: systems that are bound by their
own gravity, such as stars, can have negative heat capacities. As they contract, both their total energy and their
entropy decrease[88] but their internal temperature may increase. This can be significant for protostars and even gas
giant planets such as Jupiter. When the entropy of the black-body radiation emitted by the bodies is included,
however, the total entropy of the system can be shown to increase even as the entropy of the planet or star
decreases.[89]

Non-equilibrium states
The theory of classical or equilibrium thermodynamics is idealized. A main postulate or assumption, often not even
explicitly stated, is the existence of systems in their own internal states of thermodynamic equilibrium. In general, a
region of space containing a physical system at a given time, that may be found in nature, is not in thermodynamic
equilibrium, read in the most stringent terms. In looser terms, nothing in the entire universe is or has ever been truly
in exact thermodynamic equilibrium.[90][91]

For purposes of physical analysis, it is often enough convenient to make an assumption of thermodynamic
equilibrium. Such an assumption may rely on trial and error for its justification. If the assumption is justified, it can
often be very valuable and useful because it makes available the theory of thermodynamics. Elements of the
equilibrium assumption are that a system is observed to be unchanging over an indefinitely long time, and that there
are so many particles in a system, that its particulate nature can be entirely ignored. Under such an equilibrium
assumption, in general, there are no macroscopically detectable fluctuations. There is an exception, the case of critical
states, which exhibit to the naked eye the phenomenon of critical opalescence. For laboratory studies of critical states,
exceptionally long observation times are needed.

In all cases, the assumption of thermodynamic equilibrium, once made, implies as a consequence that no putative
candidate "fluctuation" alters the entropy of the system.

It can easily happen that a physical system exhibits internal macroscopic changes that are fast enough to invalidate
the assumption of the constancy of the entropy. Or that a physical system has so few particles that the particulate
nature is manifest in observable fluctuations. Then the assumption of thermodynamic equilibrium is to be abandoned.
There is no unqualified general definition of entropy for non-equilibrium states.[92]

There are intermediate cases, in which the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium is a very good
approximation,[93][94][95][96] but strictly speaking it is still an approximation, not theoretically ideal.

For non-equilibrium situations in general, it may be useful to consider statistical mechanical definitions of other
quantities that may be conveniently called 'entropy', but they should not be confused or conflated with
thermodynamic entropy properly defined for the second law. These other quantities indeed belong to statistical
mechanics, not to thermodynamics, the primary realm of the second law.

The physics of macroscopically observable fluctuations is beyond the scope of this article.

Arrow of time
The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law that is not symmetric to reversal of the time direction. This does
not conflict with symmetries observed in the fundamental laws of physics (particularly CPT symmetry) since the
second law applies statistically on time-asymmetric boundary conditions.[97] The second law has been related to the
difference between moving forwards and backwards in time, or to the principle that cause precedes effect (the causal
arrow of time, or causality).[98]

Irreversibility
Irreversibility in thermodynamic processes is a consequence of the asymmetric character of thermodynamic
operations, and not of any internally irreversible microscopic properties of the bodies. Thermodynamic operations are
macroscopic external interventions imposed on the participating bodies, not derived from their internal properties.
There are reputed "paradoxes" that arise from failure to recognize this.

Loschmidt's paradox
Loschmidt's paradox, also known as the reversibility paradox, is the objection that it should not be possible to deduce
an irreversible process from the time-symmetric dynamics that describe the microscopic evolution of a macroscopic
system.

In the opinion of Schrödinger, "It is now quite obvious in what manner you have to reformulate the law of entropy –
or for that matter, all other irreversible statements – so that they be capable of being derived from reversible models.
You must not speak of one isolated system but at least of two, which you may for the moment consider isolated from
the rest of the world, but not always from each other."[99] The two systems are isolated from each other by the wall,
until it is removed by the thermodynamic operation, as envisaged by the law. The thermodynamic operation is
externally imposed, not subject to the reversible microscopic dynamical laws that govern the constituents of the
systems. It is the cause of the irreversibility. The statement of the law in this present article complies with
Schrödinger's advice. The cause–effect relation is logically prior to the second law, not derived from it. This reaffirms
Albert Einstein's postulates that cornerstone Special and General Relativity - that the flow of time is irreversible,
however it is relative. Cause must precede effect, but only within the constraints as defined explicitly within General
Relativity (or Special Relativity, depending on the local spacetime conditions). Good examples of this are the Ladder
Paradox, time dilation and length contraction exhibited by objects approaching the velocity of light or within
proximity of a super-dense region of mass/energy - e.g. black holes, neutron stars, magnetars and quasars.

Poincaré recurrence theorem

The Poincaré recurrence theorem considers a theoretical microscopic description of an isolated physical system. This
may be considered as a model of a thermodynamic system after a thermodynamic operation has removed an internal
wall. The system will, after a sufficiently long time, return to a microscopically defined state very close to the initial
one. The Poincaré recurrence time is the length of time elapsed until the return. It is exceedingly long, likely longer
than the life of the universe, and depends sensitively on the geometry of the wall that was removed by the
thermodynamic operation. The recurrence theorem may be perceived as apparently contradicting the second law of
thermodynamics. More obviously, however, it is simply a microscopic model of thermodynamic equilibrium in an
isolated system formed by removal of a wall between two systems. For a typical thermodynamical system, the
recurrence time is so large (many many times longer than the lifetime of the universe) that, for all practical purposes,
one cannot observe the recurrence. One might wish, nevertheless, to imagine that one could wait for the Poincaré
recurrence, and then re-insert the wall that was removed by the thermodynamic operation. It is then evident that the
appearance of irreversibility is due to the utter unpredictability of the Poincaré recurrence given only that the initial
state was one of thermodynamic equilibrium, as is the case in macroscopic thermodynamics. Even if one could wait
for it, one has no practical possibility of picking the right instant at which to re-insert the wall. The Poincaré
recurrence theorem provides a solution to Loschmidt's paradox. If an isolated thermodynamic system could be
monitored over increasingly many multiples of the average Poincaré recurrence time, the thermodynamic behavior of
the system would become invariant under time reversal.

Maxwell's demon
James Clerk Maxwell imagined one container divided into two parts, A and B. Both
parts are filled with the same gas at equal temperatures and placed next to each other,
separated by a wall. Observing the molecules on both sides, an imaginary demon
guards a microscopic trapdoor in the wall. When a faster-than-average molecule from
A flies towards the trapdoor, the demon opens it, and the molecule will fly from A to
B. The average speed of the molecules in B will have increased while in A they will
have slowed down on average. Since average molecular speed corresponds to
temperature, the temperature decreases in A and increases in B, contrary to the second
law of thermodynamics.[100]

One response to this question was suggested in 1929 by Leó Szilárd and later by Léon
Brillouin. Szilárd pointed out that a real-life Maxwell's demon would need to have James Clerk Maxwell
some means of measuring molecular speed, and that the act of acquiring information
would require an expenditure of energy.[101] Likewise, Brillouin demonstrated that the
decrease in entropy caused by the demon would be less than the entropy produced by choosing molecules based on
their speed.[100]

Maxwell's 'demon' repeatedly alters the permeability of the wall between A and B. It is therefore performing
thermodynamic operations on a microscopic scale, not just observing ordinary spontaneous or natural macroscopic
thermodynamic processes.[101]

Quotations

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If
someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations
– then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well,
these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law
of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

— Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

There have been nearly as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it.

— Philosopher / Physicist P.W. Bridgman, (1941)

Clausius is the author of the sibyllic utterance, "The energy of the universe is constant; the entropy of the
universe tends to a maximum." The objectives of continuum thermomechanics stop far short of explaining
the "universe", but within that theory we may easily derive an explicit statement in some ways reminiscent
of Clausius, but referring only to a modest object: an isolated body of finite size.
 — Truesdell, C., Muncaster, R. G. (1980). Fundamentals of Maxwell's Kinetic Theory of a Simple
Monatomic Gas, Treated as a Branch of Rational Mechanics, Academic Press, New York, ISBN 0-12-
701350-4, p. 17.

See also
Zeroth law of thermodynamics Laws of thermodynamics
First law of thermodynamics Maximum entropy thermodynamics
Third law of thermodynamics Quantum thermodynamics
Clausius–Duhem inequality Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
Fluctuation theorem Relativistic heat conduction
Heat death of the universe Thermal diode
History of thermodynamics Thermodynamic equilibrium
Jarzynski equality

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Pokrovskii, Vladimir N. (2013). "A Derivation of the Main Relations of Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics"
(https://doi.org/10.1155%2F2013%2F906136). ISRN Thermodynamics. 2013: 1–9.
doi:10.1155/2013/906136 (https://doi.org/10.1155%2F2013%2F906136).
Quinn, T.J. (1983). Temperature, Academic Press, London, ISBN 0-12-569680-9.
Rao, Y.V.C. (2004). An Introduction to thermodynamics (https://books.google.com/books?id=iYWiCXzi
WsEC&pg=PA213). Universities Press. p. 213. ISBN 978-81-7371-461-0.
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Blackie & Son Limited, Glasgow.
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itylibrary.org/item/126047#page/295/mode/1up). Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. XX
(part II): 261–268, 289–298. Also published in Thomson, W. (December 1852). "On the Dynamical
Theory of Heat, with numerical results deduced from Mr Joule's equivalent of a Thermal Unit, and M.
Regnault's Observations on Steam" (https://archive.org/stream/londonedinburghp04maga#page/12/mo
de/2up). Philos. Mag. 4. IV (22): 13. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
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Further reading
Goldstein, Martin, and Inge F., 1993. The Refrigerator and the Universe. Harvard Univ. Press. Chpts.
4–9 contain an introduction to the second law, one a bit less technical than this entry. ISBN 978-0-674-
75324-2
Leff, Harvey S., and Rex, Andrew F. (eds.) 2003. Maxwell's Demon 2 : Entropy, classical and quantum
information, computing. Bristol UK; Philadelphia PA: Institute of Physics. ISBN 978-0-585-49237-7
Halliwell, J.J. (1994). Physical Origins of Time Asymmetry. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-56837-1.
(technical).
 Carnot, Sadi (1890). Thurston, Robert Henry (ed.). Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat and on
Machines Fitted to Develop That Power. New York: J. Wiley & Sons. (full text of 1897 ed. (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=tgdJAAAAIAAJ)) (html (http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/carnot/1943/)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20070818073812/http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/carnot/
1943/) 2007-08-18 at the Wayback Machine)
Stephen Jay Kline (1999). The Low-Down on Entropy and Interpretive Thermodynamics, La Cañada,
CA: DCW Industries. ISBN 1-928729-01-0.
Kostic, M (2011). Revisiting The Second Law of Energy Degradation and Entropy Generation: From
Sadi Carnot's Ingenious Reasoning to Holistic Generalization. AIP Conference Proceedings. Vol. 1411.
pp. 327–350. Bibcode:2011AIPC.1411..327K (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AIPC.1411..327
K). CiteSeerX 10.1.1.405.1945 (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.1945).
doi:10.1063/1.3665247 (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.3665247). ISBN 978-0-7354-0985-9. {{cite
book}}: |journal= ignored (help) also at [1] (https://web.archive.org/web/20130420222450/http://ww
w.kostic.niu.edu/2ndLaw/Revisiting%20The%20Second%20Law%20of%20Energy%20Degradation%2
0and%20Entropy%20Generation%20-%20From%20Carnot%20to%20Holistic%20Generalization-4.pd
f).

External links
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Philosophy of Statistical Mechanics (http://plato.stanford.edu/ent
ries/statphys-statmech/)" – by Lawrence Sklar.
Second law of thermodynamics (http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node3
0.html) in the MIT Course Unified Thermodynamics and Propulsion (http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/
FALL/thermodynamics/notes/notes.html) from Prof. Z. S. Spakovszky
E.T. Jaynes, 1988, "The evolution of Carnot's principle (http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/ccarnot.pdf),"
in G. J. Erickson and C. R. Smith (eds.)Maximum-Entropy and Bayesian Methods in Science and
Engineering, Vol,.1: p. 267.
Caratheodory, C., "Examination of the foundations of thermodynamics," trans. by D. H. Delphenich (htt
p://neo-classical-physics.info/uploads/3/0/6/5/3065888/caratheodory_-_thermodynamics.pdf)
The second law of Thermodynamics (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y2bm), BBC Radio 4
discussion with John Gribbin, Peter Atkins & Monica Grady (In Our Time, December 16, 2004)
The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 2012 (https://www.jour
nals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/663835)

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