Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
The second law of thermodynamics is incredibly important in scientific fields ranging from physics to chemistry to biology and has been used to explain many natural phenomena. It is so well established that Sir Aurthur Eddington said, "if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." However, despite this, we can use statistical mechanics and come up with a very simple system that seems to violate the second law. How can this be? Is statistical mechanics wrong? Well, we have to remember that thermodynamics is essentially the theory for huge systems, so we have to look at the statistical system in the limit where we have a very large system. Unsurprisingly, we see the second law very naturally arise from taking this limit, where the highest entropy states have a significantly higher likelyhood of being occupied than low entropy states.
► Music Credit: Dj Quads
Track Name: "It's Near"
Music By: Dj Quads @ soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quads
Original upload HERE - youtube.com/watch?v=UI79n3E1U_g
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/ZapPhysics
The second law of thermodynamics is incredibly important in scientific fields ranging from physics to chemistry to biology and has been used to explain many natural phenomena. It is so well established that Sir Aurthur Eddington said, "if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." However, despite this, we can use statistical mechanics and come up with a very simple system that seems to violate the second law. How can this be? Is statistical mechanics wrong? Well, we have to remember that thermodynamics is essentially the theory for huge systems, so we have to look at the statistical system in the limit where we have a very large system. Unsurprisingly, we see the second law very naturally arise from taking this limit, where the highest entropy states have a significantly higher likelyhood of being occupied than low entropy states.
► Music Credit: Dj Quads
Track Name: "It's Near"
Music By: Dj Quads @ soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quads
Original upload HERE - youtube.com/watch?v=UI79n3E1U_g
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/ZapPhysics
