The First Law of Thermodynamics, also known as the Law of the Conservation of Energy, says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form. You’ll find that many of the principles you already work with to calculate and analyze circuits like Kirchhoff’s Law are based on the foundations of thermodynamics. For the electronics designer, thermodynamics presents a more personal reality with the everyday devices you design. A truly isolated system is rare.Īt a high level, our entire universe is considered a system, but what are the boundaries of our universe, and what are its surroundings? Those are some of the bigger questions we have yet to answer.
This converted energy crosses a boundary from the system within the metal container to the surroundings outside of it. When your tea kettle starts to boil, it transforms some of the water into steam which releases from the spout at the top. The rest of the kitchen, even the rest of the house, those are the surroundings. When you turn on your electric tea kettle in the morning, you have water enclosed within a metal container, that’s your system. This process of exchange where energy transforms from one state to another all happens within a set of systems and surroundings. Now that your body has energy gained from food, it can go about doing work out in the world. Take for example the process of eating, you take in the chemical energy of food, and convert it into a form that can be used by your body. We all live in a system where matter and energy are being continuously exchanged it’s an endless flow.
Thermodynamics is not just the study of heat and work it’s the study of how energy, the stuff that you and I and everything around you is made of, works. Or when you cook that delicious steak on the grill this weekend, that’s the First Law of Thermodynamics at work, transferring energy in the form of heat to your food. When you clean your office week after week, which seems to get messier by the day, that’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics at work, where everything leads to an increased state of disorganization. The problem is, thermodynamics is just the way energy works, so it’s easy to miss. This is a scientific concept that weaves itself into the very fabric of life. This isn’t just a concept reserved for the realm of physics, and it’s not a set of laws that you’ll only find in electronics, refrigerators, cars, planes, etc. Everything is Thermodynamics: An IntroductionĮverything is thermodynamics.