State Functions and Entropy
If Z is a state function then the balance of Z remains unchanged during a cyclic process:
- .
Entropy is a state function and is defined as
so that
- ,
then it is clear that for any cyclic process,
meaning that the net entropy change over a cycle is 0.
Read more about this topic: Thermodynamic Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words state, functions and/or entropy:
“Governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“The mind is a finer body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing, excluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the brain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring, comparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is the mystery of generation repeated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)