The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Abstract

The origin of the Second Law lies with Sadi Carnot’s work: Reflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu, published in 1824, dealing with the establishment of the maximum amount of work that can be obtained from a steam engine. Thus, its efficiency could be rigorously expressed, instead of the method used then: “work (ftlb_f) per bushel of good coal(!)”.

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who by standards of the traditional culture are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice 1 have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The respond was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s? (C. P. Snow: ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’.)