Abstract
The evidence here provided shows that the thermodynamics of the second law, as currently understood, originated in a correction of the flaws affecting Clausius original work on this matter. The body of knowledge emerging from this correction has been here called post-Clausius’ thermodynamics. The said corrections, carried on with the intended goal of preserving the validity of Clausius’ main result, namely the law of increasing entropy, made use of a number of counterintuitive or logically at fault notions. A joint revision of Clausius’ and post-Clausius’ work on the second law, carried on retaining some of Clausius original notions, and disregarding others introduced by post-Clausius thermodynamics, led this author to results in direct contradiction to the law of increasing entropy. Among the key results coming out of this work we find the one stating that the total-entropy change for spontaneous thermodynamic processes is the result of the summation of the opposite-sign contributions coming from the entropic (energy degrading) and negentropic (energy upgrading) changes subsumed by any such process. These results also show, via the total-entropy change for a non-reversible heat engine, that negentropic thermodynamics subsumes post-Clausius thermodynamics as a special case.
Highlights
The evidence here provided shows that the thermodynamics of the second law, as currently understood, originated in a correction of the flaws affecting Clausius original work on this matter
A joint revision of Clausius’ and post-Clausius’ work on the second law, carried on retaining some of Clausius original notions, and disregarding others introduced by post-Clausius thermodynamics, led this author to results in direct contradiction to the law of increasing entropy
Among the key results coming out of this work we find the one stating that the total-entropy change for spontaneous thermodynamic processes is the result of the summation of the opposite-sign contributions coming from the entropic and negentropic changes subsumed by any such process
Summary
The cyclical concatenation of reversible changes to be described below was devised by Carnot to study the continuous transformation of heat into work taking place in heat engines. Out of the results just obtained and for the purposes of the arguments that follow we have written below the total-entropy changes of the two transformations taking place in a reversible heat engine:. The equality to zero of Equation (5), a result previously obtained by Clausius via the application of the laws of ideal gases to the isothermal and reversible volume changes taking place in Carnot reversible engine, allowed him to voice the result given by this equation in the following manner, “... Equations (2) and (3) represent the premises of a thermodynamic argument whose conclusion is given by Equations (4) or (5)
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