Thermodynamics Laws Quotes & Sayings

When I was lecturing recently to a group of cardiologists at the Mayo Clinic I said ...
Why is it that from the moment you enter medical school to the moment you retire, the only disorder that you will ever diagnose with a physics textbook is obesity? This is biology folks, it's endocrinology, it's physiology - physics has nothing to do with it. The laws of thermodynamics are always true, the energy balance equation is irrelevant.
If someone's getting fatter I guarantee you they're taking more energy than they expend (as long as they're getting heavier). And if they're getting leaner I guarantee they're expending more than they're taking in. [It's] given, let's never discuss it again. And if you say it to your patients you're telling them nothing
(University Of Colorado Medical School, May 9th 2013 - via YouTube) — Gary Taubes

In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics! — Dan Castellaneta

The elevator shaft was a kind of heat sink. Hot food was cold by the time it arrived. Cold food got colder. No one knew what would happen to ice cream, but it would probably involve some rewriting of the laws of thermodynamics. — Terry Pratchett

In thermodynamics as well as in other branches of molecular physics , the laws of phenomena have to a certain extent been anticipated, and their investigation facilitated, by the aid of hypotheses as to occult molecular structures and motions with which such phenomena are assumed to be connected. The hypothesis which has answered that purpose in the case of thermodynamics, is called that of "molecular vortices," or otherwise, the "centrifugal theory of elasticity. — William John Macquorn Rankine

Entropy is one of the laws of thermodynamics. It's a physical law that says everything in nature is moving from order to disorder. In our lives this same principle is at work. As time moves on, things break down as we make mistakes. This is the 'letdown' every person experiences because of sin. For Christians this concept doesn't end there because we realize God's 'beautiful' mercy and grace restores the order in our lives. — Jon Foreman

Our generation is wonderful generation, full of wonder. It's very hard to find an example of it in all our history. Composed of contradictions - light and darkness mixed. — Abraham Isaac Kook

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation. — Arthur Stanley Eddington

Tell me it's never been done. Because the only real laws in this world-the only things we really know-are the two postulates of relativity, the three laws of Newton, the four laws of thermodynamics, and Maxwell's equation-no, scratch that, the only things we really know are Maxwell's equations, the three laws of Newton, the two postulates of relativity, and the periodic table. That's all we know that's true. All the rest are man's laws — Dean Kamen

Right faith is of necessity required for Baptism, since it is said: "the justice of God is by faith in Jesus Christ" (Romans 3:22) ... Therefore, Baptism without faith avails nothing and thus we must recall that without faith no one is acceptable to God. — Thomas Aquinas

We live most days and most of the hours of those days in a world permeated with the making and purchasing of idols. — Eugene H. Peterson

Professor Eddington has recently remarked that 'The law that entropy always increases the second law of thermodynamics holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature'. It is not a little instructive that so similar a law [the fundamental theorem of natural selection] should hold the supreme position among the biological sciences. — Ronald Fisher

One, two, three, four, we don't want your fuckin' laws of thermodynamics! — David Rakoff

There were a number of particularly delightful incidents. There is, for example, the physicist who introduced me to one of my favorite laws, which he described as Murphys law or the fourth law of thermodynamics (actually there were only three last I heard) which states: If anything can go wrong it will. — Anne Roe

The laws of thermodynamics may be regarded as particular cases of more general laws, applicable to all such states of matter as constitute Energy , or the capacity to perform work, which more general laws form the basis of the science of energetics, a science comprehending, as special branches, the theories of motion, heat, light , electricity , and all other physical phenomena. — William John Macquorn Rankine

Tell me how does it feel with my teeth in your heart! — Euripides

Earnest men never think in vain, though their thoughts may be errors. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The fundamental laws of the universe which correspond to the two fundamental theorems of the mechanical theory of heat.
1. The energy of the universe is constant.
2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. — Rudolf Clausius

If it weren't happening, he would have sworn that their reproduction speed alone violated the laws of thermodynamics - or at least common decency. The — Evan Currie

There are indeed times when one should TRUST blindly, just as there are times when one should not. WISDOM consists in being able to tell one from the other. — Daniel Quinn

Ironically, the serious study of the impossible has frequently opened up rich and entirely unexpected domains of science. For example, over the centuries the frustrating and futile search for a "perpetual motion machine" led physicists to conclude that such a machine was impossible, forcing them to postulate the conservation of energy and the three laws of thermodynamics. Thus the futile search to build perpetual motion machines helped to open up the entirely new field of thermodynamics, which in part laid the foundation of the steam engine, the machine age, and modern industrial society. — Michio Kaku

The laws of thermodynamics restrict all technologies, man's as well as nature's, and apply to all economic systems whether capitalist, communist, socialist, or fascist. We do not create or destroy (produce or consume) anything in a physical sense- we merely transform or rearrange. And the inevitable cost of arranging greater order in one part of the system (the human economy) is creating a more than offsetting amount of disorder elsewhere (the natural environment). — Herman E. Daly

Their hatred is so passionate that I can't help but wonder if they're attracted to each other. — Sarah Thornton

Darwinism doesn't explain where gravity comes from. It doesn't explain where thermodynamics comes from. It doesn't explain where the laws of physics come from. It doesn't explain where matter came from. — Ben Stein

The laws of thermodynamics, as empirically determined, express the approximate and probable behavior of systems of a great number of particles, or, more precisely, they express the laws of mechanics for such systems as they appear to beings who have not the fineness of perception to enable them to appreciate quantities of the order of magnitude of those which relate to single particles, and who cannot repeat their experiments often enough to obtain any but the most probable results. — J. Willard Gibbs

Much of the apparent uniformity of Nature is a uniformity of averages. Our gross senses only take cognizance of the average effect of vast numbers of individual particles and processes; and the regularity of the average might well be compatible with a great degree of lawlessness of the individual. I do not think it is possible to dismiss statistical laws (such as the second law of thermodynamics) as merely mathematical adaptations of the other classes of law to certain practical problems. — Arthur Stanley Eddington

Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot with old age and are not consumed in the process of living. On the contrary, they grow at so much per cent per annum, by the well-known mathematical laws of simple and compound interest ... It is this underlying confusion between wealth and debt which has made such a tragedy of the scientific era. — Frederick Soddy

Regarding the Laws of Thermodynamics: (1) You can't win, (2) you can't break even, and (3) you can't get out of the game. — Dennis Overbye

It reflects a prevailing myth that production technology is no more amenable to human judgment or social interests than the laws of thermodynamics, atomic structure or biological inheritance. — Barry Commoner

The laws of thermodynamics tell us something quite different. Economic activity is merely borrowing low-entropy energy inputs from the environment and transforming them into temporary products and services of value. In the transformation process, often more energy is expended and lost to the environment than is embedded in the particular good or service being produced. — Jeremy Rifkin

Whatever you are physically," he said, "male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy - all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. Whatever the color, the shape, the design of the shade that conceals it, the flame inside the lamp remains the same. You are that flame." He — Cassandra Clare

The conviction grows in me that we shall discover laws of personality and behavior which are as significant for human progress or human understanding as the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. — Carl R. Rogers

No you're not adventurous, but that doesn't matter. That's precisely what I love about you. Your vulnerability, your shyness. This world is not just for the rash and the fearless, for the loud go-getters-no, the shy and quiet, the dreamy and eccentric have their place there, too. Without them, there world would be no nuances, no light blue watercolours, no unsaid words that give the imagination space to work. And isn't it precisely the dreamers who know the truest and greatest adventures take place in the heart? — Nicolas Barreau

It is possible to express the laws of thermodynamics in the form of independent principles , deduced by induction from the facts of observation and experiment, without reference to any hypothesis as to the occult molecular operations with which the sensible phenomena may be conceived to be connected; and that course will be followed in the body of the present treatise. But, in giving a brief historical sketch of the progress of thermodynamics, the progress of the hypothesis of thermic molecular motions cannot be wholly separated from that of the purely inductive theory. — William John Macquorn Rankine

Yes, we need euthanasia, for certain cases where people are in comas or too immobile to even press a button. — Jack Kevorkian

Even though the transformation of energy, in all of its various forms, is the very basis of all economic activity, only a tiny fraction of economists have even studied thermodynamics. And only a handful of individuals inside the profession have attempted to redefine economic theory and practice based on the energy laws. — Jeremy Rifkin

However inventive humans turn out to be, they will never invent their way around the laws of thermodynamics. That fundamental truth is denied by standard infinite-growth theory, which blithely projects productivity gains from technological innovation indefinitely into the future. — The Worldwatch Institute

Don't pressure yourself. Don't worry about what others think you should do or what the societal "norm" is. Do what moves you and makes you smile and the "good" will follow. — Misha Collins