This is the connection between unavailable energy and entropy. In all
transformations some fraction of the transforming energy becomes heat,
and this heat flows by conduction and radiation into the surrounding
bodies. In general this heat simply raises the temperature of the
medium into which it flows, and becomes unavailable for further
transformations. With every transformation that occurs some part of the
energy involved becomes unavailable. Therefore although the sum of the
available and unavailable energy of the Universe remains constant, the
fraction of unavailable energy tends continually to a maximum.
INERT MATTER
We can see now what is indicated by Bergson’s “inert matter.” It is not
matter deprived of energy--such an expression has no meaning--_it is
energy which is unavailable for further transformations_.
The matter in which we choose to say that this energy is inherent has
become _inert_. Let us substitute for the Carnot engine the actual
steam-engine of a ship, the condenser of which is cooled by the sea
water which is taken in, and which is then heated and flows out again
into the sea. The heat derived from the source, that is, from the
furnace of the boiler where coal is burned to raise steam, thus passes
out into the sea. Now the heat capacity of the sea is so great that the
temperature of the water is not appreciably raised by this heat, which
drains into it from the engine: even if it were appreciably raised, the
heat would be conducted into the earth, or would be radiated out into
space, and would then raise the temperature of the material bodies of
the universe. But let all this heat remain in the sea. It then simply
raises the temperature of the water by an exceedingly small amount,
and the motions of the molecules become infinitesimally increased.
But the heat becomes equally distributed by conduction and convection
throughout the mass of the water in the sea, and as there are no
differences in adjacent parts there are no means whereby the energy
which thus passes into the sea can be again transformed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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