Re: laws of thermodynamics

Sheila -
    
The 1st law of thermo says that various forms of internal energy of a system (mass, heat, electromagnetic energy &c) can be converted into work & vice versa but that the total energy in a closed system remains constant. There are various ways of stating the 2d law, one of which is that heat can't be converted to useful work with 100% efficiency: Any heat engine has to exhaust some "waste heat." Thus the energy of a closed system (& by extension the whole universe) is always becoming less available for useful work. When heat is understood as the energy of molecular motion, it can be shown that this statement of the 2d law is equivalent to the statement that the molecules of a system generally proceed toward more probable - which means less ordered - configurations. To be more precise order can never increase.

This does NOT mean that the order of a NON-closed system can't increase. In fact, work in non-equilibrium thermo has shown that the flow of heat through an open system can give rise to ordered "dissipative structures."

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Sheila Wilson
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:55 AM
  Subject: laws of thermodynamics

  Someone referenced the Second Law of Thermodynamics and it's application to creationism. Being curious, I looked it up online and found the Young Earth Creationism viewpoint on www.christiananswers.net. This is the first time I have seen the thermodynamics applied to creationism - yes, I was naive.

  The application doesn't make sense because it says everything in the universe goes from more order to less order/chaos because of the second law. This implies that heat cannot ever be recovered which seems to contradict the law of conservation of mass and energy in that mass/energy cannot be created or destroyed. I understand that heat may dissipate or be "lost" but the actual amount of energy hasn't changed. The energy from heat is only transferred.

  Is this accurate/reasonable thinking?

  Sheila

  Sheila McGinty Wilson
  sheila-wilson@sbcglobal.net
Received on Tue Jan 4 12:28:34 2005