Your friend says that the second law of thermodynamics can't be true because life itself is a highly ordered system that wouldn't exist if everything tended to maximum entropy. What is your friend forgetting about life on the earth?

Living things start out disordered and then increase in entropy.

Living things start out ordered and then increase in entropy.

The earth is not a closed system, and energy enters it as sunlight.

The earth is a closed system, and thus the environment is at maximum entropy.

Question

Your friend says that the second law of thermodynamics can't be true because life itself is a highly ordered system that wouldn't exist if everything tended to maximum entropy. What is your friend forgetting about life on the earth?

Living things start out disordered and then increase in entropy.

Living things start out ordered and then increase in entropy.

The earth is not a closed system, and energy enters it as sunlight.

The earth is a closed system, and thus the environment is at maximum entropy.

anonymous · Answer

please help:/ I'm really confused

jfraser · Answer

there are a couple things that might be acceptable answers. Consider each statement one at a time.

anonymous · Answer

Living things start out ordered and then increase in entropy?

jfraser · Answer

could that be true? what about the others? the second law of thermo assumes a very specific kind of behavior that life may or may not acutally possess

anonymous · Answer

I'm not sure...I thought it was either B or C

jfraser · Answer

check a resource (like wikipedia) for the wording of the second law of thermo. That should fix things

anonymous · Answer

The second law of thermodynamics states that all spontaneous processes increase the entropy of the universe, where entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system.

anonymous · Answer

I still don't know what the answer is :/

jfraser · Answer

From Wikipedia: 

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy.

the key word is isolated system, one where nothing comes in and nothing comes out, not heat, energy, or matter can leave an isolated system

anonymous · Answer

okay...so D?

anonymous · Answer

since the earth is a closed system? That's like being isolated right?

jfraser · Answer

the earth is definitely not a closed system. mass and energy enter and leave all the time

anonymous · Answer

alright, thank you

anonymous · Answer

The second law does not prevent order but requires that energy be expended to keep it or increase it.   left to themselves systems human or natural tend to disorder however slowly.

anonymous · Answer

alright. then its either  A or C right?

anonymous · Answer

The earth is not a closed system

anonymous · Answer

I know. so is the answer c then?

anonymous · Answer

yes.

anonymous · Answer

Thank you!