| The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002. |
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| thermodynamics |
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| The branch of physics devoted to the study of heat and related phenomena. The behavior of heat is governed by the three laws of thermodynamics: (1) The total energy of an isolated system cannot change; this is the law of conservation of energy. (2) Heat will not flow from a cold to a hot object spontaneously (see entropy). (3) It is impossible, in a finite number of operations, to produce a temperature of absolute zero. | 1 |
| ‡ All thermodynamic properties of matter can be understood in terms of the motion of atoms and molecules. | 2 |
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| | | The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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