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Thermodynamics
Published in Mary K. Theodore, Louis Theodore, Introduction to Environmental Management, 2021
Notwithstanding these additional complexities, the enumerated principles above are conceptually elucidating. In particular, the second law mandates that point #(2) is categorically always true within the context of the overall entropy change associated with any process. As previously mentioned, entropy may be conceptualized as a measure of disorder (i.e., “chaos”). Inversely, one may view exergy (and also a related quantity, the “negentropy”) as a measure of order. Bearing this dichotomy in mind, it stands to reason that entropy (disorder) is generated at the expense of exergy (order) destruction. Because the second law dictates that all real processes result in a net entropy generation, all real processes must also result in a net exergy destruction. Indeed, Lord Kelvin’s famous conjecture about the eventual “heat death of the universe,” when all of the conceivable exergy in the universe has been consumed, is a direct consequence of this inexorable movement toward increasing entropy.
The second and third laws
Published in W. John Rankin, Chemical Thermodynamics, 2019
Clausius referred to this latter state as the ‘heat death of the universe’. In that state the same total amount of energy would be present in the universe as at its beginning (the first law), but none of it would be available for work.
Exergetic port-Hamiltonian systems: modelling basics
Published in Mathematical and Computer Modelling of Dynamical Systems, 2021
Markus Lohmayer, Paul Kotyczka, Sigrid Leyendecker
The upshot of Thomson’s 1852 paper [63] introducing the available energy concept was that eventually all available energy will be destroyed. However, the boundary conditions and expansion rate of the universe are not well known to mankind and therefore we must not conclude that the physical universe approaches thermodynamic equilibrium [66] which in this context is often referred to as the dead state (of the system) or heat death (of the universe). This uncertainty and the pessimism about life carried by this terminology speak against its use.