So let's backtrack a little bit and talk about the first law of thermodynamics
which says energy cannot be created or destroyed. We know from this that the
total energy at the university is
constant. Now we can transfer energy and converted from one type to the other
but ultimately the sum of all those energies must be equal to the same constant value.
The second law of thermodynamics is a little bit different
instead of talking about energy we're talking about spontaneity,
Specifically talking about entropy and what we know is that for any spontaneous process.
The intro bf the universe increases. Processes that happen spontaneously
are those that increase the entropy of the universe. So although parts of a
process may not be spontaneous.
When we look at the entire system and its surroundings
what we find is that overall there's an increase in the entropy
of the universe . And that's what makes our spontaneous reaction spontaneous.
This will depend heavily on the temperature and as we get later in this
unit and talk about Gibbs free energy will be able to quantify that.
Next we're going to a more in-depth about what entropy really is.