Question

Does a process that violates the second law of thermodynamics violate the First Law of Thermodynamics?

Answer 1

Hint: The second law of thermodynamics is dependent on the entropy (randomness) of a system and there is only transfer of heat but not matter whereas the first law depends on the total energy of a system which is conserved.

Complete step by step solution:
The first law of thermodynamics states the law of conservation of energy.
The second law of thermodynamics states that, when energy changes from one form to another, or matter moves freely, the entropy (disorder) in an enclosed system increases. Or it deals with the way that the energy and the matter flow.

In order to prove the above statement, let us consider an example. The heat flows from a hot body to a colder body until both the bodies attain the same temperature. If this process spontaneously reversed itself, it would violate the second law but not the first law.

Let us understand with another example. Consider the mixed gases in the air in a room. If the gases in the air at room temperature spontaneously separate, such that all the oxygen and nitrogen are not mixed anymore, this will not violate the first law but it would violate the second law.

Hence,it is need not to be true that the process that violates the second law of thermodynamics does not necessarily violate the first law of thermodynamics.

Note: Heat cannot transfer itself from a colder body to a hotter body. In order to transfer heat from cold to hot it is possible to extract heat from a constant source at constant temperature into work.