Ask A Scientist© Physics Archive

>
> > >  name       Aaron
> > >  status     student
> > >  age        16
>
> > >  Question - With respect to the laws of thermodynamics, is potential
> > > energy on the same footing as kinetic energy? That is, if a potential
> > > source performs some action through some conversion to kinetic energy,
> > > will a portion of its originally potential energy be lost as entropy? An
> > > example might be the strong bonds within a hadron or meson. Also, are
> > > fumdamental particles subject to the same idea? Thanks.
>
>Thermodynamics describes the statistics of large numbers of particles
>with a large number of degrees of freedon. It doesn't make sense to
>try to apply it to individual particles or very simple systems.
>
>Tim Mooney
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