second law of thermodynamics

1. 1.

   a law stating that mechanical work can be derived from a body only when that body interacts with another at a lower temperature; any spontaneous process results in an increase of entropy

   Broaderlaw of thermodynamics

Questions about second law of thermodynamics

What does second law of thermodynamics mean?

second law of thermodynamics means "a law stating that mechanical work can be derived from a body only when that body interacts with another at a lower temperature; any spontaneous process results in an increase of entropy".

Is second law of thermodynamics a common word?

second law of thermodynamics is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.