So if we only consider the heat pumped into your kitchen from the food storage area of your refrigerator, there's a decrease in the entropy of the kitchen/refrigerator combination. And more heat means an increase in entropy. (Hey, I'm a theorist, okay?) But the byproduct of this is that more heat is produced and pumped into your kitchen. Whatever it is that refrigerators do when you plug them in. This energy is used to drive a motor inside your fridge, and pump some fluid around or something. When you plug it in, energy is delivered from some power plant to your refrigerator. Your refrigerator doesn't work unless you plug it in. Well if this process happened by itself, the second law of thermodynamics would be violated. So here, when heat flows from cold to warm, it must decrease! Another apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy increases when heat flows from warm to cold. From the refrigerator (cold) to your kitchen (warm). The basic function of a refrigerator is to take heat out of its interior, and transfer it out the back into your kitchen (or wherever your refrigerator is). Let's consider the refrigerator that's making your ice. (Entropy increases when heat flows from a warm substance to a cold substance.)īut it gets more interesting. As for the total amount of entropy, it increases. So the entropy of your freezer increases, while the entropy of the water decreases. When heat is added to something, its entropy increases. Heat flows from the water (which is warmer) to the rest of the freezer. You put water at, say 40 degrees (Fahrenheit) into your 20 degree freezer. Entropy can decrease in some things, provided it increases in others. (I've made amazingly convincing arguments for this by now!) We've said as an example, that the entropy of water increases when it melts, and decreases when it freezes. We've said that the entropy of the universe never decreases.
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