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Chapter 3: Q16DQ (page 676)

How can the thermal conduction of heat from a hot object to a cold object increase entropy when the same amount of heat that flows out of the hot object flows into the cold one?

Short Answer

Expert verified

For two objects at different temperatures, there is an increase in entropy while heat flows from hotter to colder object.

Step by step solution

01

Step 1:Definition of second law of thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics states that as energy is transferred or transformed, more and more of it is wasted. It's one of the fourlaws of thermodynamics, which describe the relationships between thermal energy, or heat, and other forms of energy, and how energy affects matter.

Heat flows from a hotter object to a colder one

02

Step 2:Entropy change of the object

There occurs an entropy change while heat flows out or inside the object.

For hotter object, heat flows out of an object.

Hence, entropy change:

∆S=‐QT

For colder object, heat flows inside it:

∆S=QT

03

Net entropy during the heat

Hence, net entropy changes during heat flow:

∆S=QT‐QTT>Tϕ∆S>0

Thus, for two objects at different temperatures, there is an increase in entropy while heat flows from hotter to colder object.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Imagine a special air filter placed in a window of a house. The tiny holes in the filter allow only air molecules moving faster than a certain speed to exit the house, and allow only air molecules moving slower than that speed to enter the house from outside. What effect would this filter have on the temperature inside the house? (It turns out that the second law of thermodynamics—which we will discuss in Chapter 20—tells us that such a wonderful air filter would be impossible to make.)

The efficiency of heat engines is high when the temperature difference between the hot and cold reservoirs is large. Refrigerators, on the other hand, work better when the temperature difference is small. Thinking of the mechanical refrigeration cycle shown in Fig. 20.9, explain in physical terms why it takes less work to remove heat from the working substance if the two reservoirs (the inside of the refrigerator and the outside air) are at nearly the same temperature, than if the outside air is much warmer than the interior of the refrigerator.

Why do frozen water pipes burst? Would a mercury thermometer break if the temperature went below the freezing temperature of mercury? Why or why not?

For the following processes, is the work done by the system (defined as the expanding or contracting gas) on the environment positive or negative?

(a) expansion of the burned gasoline–air mixture in the cylinder of an automobile engine

(b) opening a bottle of champagne

(c) filling a scuba tank with compressed air

(d) partial crumpling of a sealed, empty water bottle as you drive from the mountains down to sea level.

When a wet cloth is hung up in a hot wind in the desert, it is cooled by evaporation to a temperature that may be20C°or so below that of the air. Discuss this process in light of the second law of thermodynamics.
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