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To: mnehrling
The second law states The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

Actually the second law says nothing about time at all.

On earth, for example, we have external energies acting upon the earth constantly... we are far from being in an isolated system.

Yes, and so what?

78 posted on 06/20/2008 7:48:05 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Darwinism!)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode
Actually the second law says nothing about time at all.

Really? Tell that to Rudolf Clausius who wrote that in as a fundamental part of his equation when formulating the law.
(open system)
(closed system)
where S is the entropy and t is time.

Yes, and so what?

Simply put, because the law makes a different if the system is an open or closed system because you are introducing outside energy. Furthermore, the concept of entropy in thermodynamics is not identical to the common notion of "disorder". For example, a thermodynamically closed system of certain solutions will eventually transform from a cloudy liquid to a clear solution containing large "orderly" crystals. Most people would characterize the former state as having "more disorder" than the latter state. However, in a purely thermodynamic sense, the entropy has increased in this system, not decreased. The units of measure of entropy in thermodynamics are "units of energy per unit of temperature". Whether a human perceives one state of a system as "more orderly" than another has no bearing on the calculation of this quantity. The common notion that entropy in thermodynamics is equivalent to a popular conception of "disorder" has caused many non-physicists to completely misinterpret what the second law of thermodynamics is really about.

79 posted on 06/20/2008 8:04:18 AM PDT by mnehring
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