Encyclopedia > Third law of thermodynamics

  Article Content

Third law of thermodynamics

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
Kings Park, New York

... There are 5,574 housing units at an average density of 365.4/km² (946.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 95.45% White, 0.84% African American, 0.13% Native ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 21.6 ms