Encyclopedia > Nernst's theorem

  Article Content

Third law of thermodynamics

Redirected from Nernst's theorem

Nernst's theorem, sometimes referred to as the third law of thermodynamics, states that the entropy of a system at zero absolute temperature is a well-defined constant. This is due to the fact that a system at zero temperature exists in its ground state, so that its entropy is determined by the degeneracy of the ground state. Many systems, such as crystal lattices[?], have a unique ground state, and therefore have zero entropy at at absolute zero (since ln(1) = 0).



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Quackery

... up to two metal plates, in a medical-looking box. They receive a lot of money, and cite a lot of people cured. These people usually blame a conspiracy or a cover-up for the ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 25 ms