Laws of Thermodynamics - Third Law

Third Law

The third law of thermodynamics is sometimes stated as follows:

The entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero is exactly equal to zero.

At zero temperature the system must be in a state with the minimum thermal energy. This statement holds true if the perfect crystal has only one state with minimum energy. Entropy is related to the number of possible microstates according to S = kBln(Ω), where S is the entropy of the system, kB Boltzmann's constant, and Ω the number of microstates (e.g. possible configurations of atoms). At absolute zero there is only 1 microstate possible (Ω=1) and ln(1) = 0.

A more general form of the third law that applies to systems such as glasses that may have more than one minimum energy state:

The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches zero.

The constant value (not necessarily zero) is called the residual entropy of the system.

Read more about this topic:  Laws Of Thermodynamics

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