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From: morse@leadsv.UUCP (Terry Morse)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: 100% Efficiency
Message-ID: <550@leadsv.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 12:42:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: leadsv.550
Posted: Wed Aug  7 12:42:30 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 03:54:42 EDT
References: <3478@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Lockheed, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 19

In article <3478@decwrl.UUCP>, williams@kirk.DEC writes:
> 
>          ...     The idea behind the second law is that some of the
> energy is always lost to the environment. 

That is not the idea behind the second law.  If you could conceive of
a perfectly insulated enclosure with a 100% space heater in it, the second
law would still tell you that the process is irreversible.  Even though no
energy has passed into the environment, entropy has nevertheless been
increased.

The second law will tell you little about how much "leakage" one may expect
out of a system; it will tell you accurately the direction of a process,
though.
-- 

Terry Morse  (408)743-1487

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