Good! Good, that's good. Then you're familiar with the very basics of physics. Well, there are four basic laws of thermodynamics:
The first law of thermodynamics is that heat and work--which is the force exerted on an object multiplied by the distance it traveled--are forms of energy transfer. Energy is invariably conserved but the internal energy of a closed system changes as heat and work are transferred in or out of it.
The second law of thermodynamics is that the entropy--that is, in layman's terms, the amount of energy within a system that turns into heat and isn't available for useful work--of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases. Isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermal equilibrium—-the state of maximum entropy of the system—-in a process known as "thermalization".
The third law of thermodynamics is that the entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches zero. The entropy of a system at absolute zero--the coldest possible temperature that can exist--is typically zero, and in all cases is determined only by the number of different ground states it has. Specifically, the entropy of a pure crystalline substance at absolute zero temperature is zero.
And then there's the Zeroth law of thermodynamics, which is that if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they must be in thermal equilibrium with each other. This may seem completely redundant, but it helps define the notion of temperature in a tangible way.
[If you understood that, congratulations. If you didn't, he is capable of saying it in more simple terms, but he needs to be asked to do so.]
[video] Thank you, Wikipedia
The first law of thermodynamics is that heat and work--which is the force exerted on an object multiplied by the distance it traveled--are forms of energy transfer. Energy is invariably conserved but the internal energy of a closed system changes as heat and work are transferred in or out of it.
The second law of thermodynamics is that the entropy--that is, in layman's terms, the amount of energy within a system that turns into heat and isn't available for useful work--of any isolated system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases. Isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermal equilibrium—-the state of maximum entropy of the system—-in a process known as "thermalization".
The third law of thermodynamics is that the entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches zero. The entropy of a system at absolute zero--the coldest possible temperature that can exist--is typically zero, and in all cases is determined only by the number of different ground states it has. Specifically, the entropy of a pure crystalline substance at absolute zero temperature is zero.
And then there's the Zeroth law of thermodynamics, which is that if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they must be in thermal equilibrium with each other. This may seem completely redundant, but it helps define the notion of temperature in a tangible way.
[If you understood that, congratulations. If you didn't, he is capable of saying it in more simple terms, but he needs to be asked to do so.]