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The laws of thermodynamics are the result of progress made in this field over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first established thermodynamic principle, which eventually became the second law of thermodynamics, was formulated by Sadi Carnot in 1824 in his book Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire.
In macroscopic thermodynamics, the second law is a basic observation applicable to any actual thermodynamic process; in statistical thermodynamics, the second law is postulated to be a consequence of molecular chaos.
The first law of thermodynamics is a formulation of the law of conservation of energy in the context of thermodynamic processes.The law distinguishes two principal forms of energy transfer, heat and thermodynamic work, that modify a thermodynamic system containing a constant amount of matter.
The first law of thermodynamics is essentially a definition of heat, i.e. heat is the change in the internal energy of a system that is not caused by a change of the external parameters of the system. However, the second law of thermodynamics is not a defining relation for the entropy.
Thermodynamics is expressed by a mathematical framework of thermodynamic equations which relate various thermodynamic quantities and physical properties measured in a laboratory or production process. Thermodynamics is based on a fundamental set of postulates, that became the laws of thermodynamics.
From there he was able to infer the principle of Sadi Carnot and the definition of entropy (1865). Established during the 19th century, the Kelvin-Planck statement of the second law says, "It is impossible for any device that operates on a cycle to receive heat from a single reservoir and produce a net amount of work." This statement was shown ...