The various ways of formulating the second law of thermodynamics tell what happens rather than why it happens. Why should heat transfer occur only from hot to cold? Why should the universe become increasingly disorderly? The answer is that it is a matter of overwhelming probability. Disorder is simply vastly more likely than order. To illustrate this fact, we will examine some random processes, starting with coin tosses.
Coin Tosses
What are the possible outcomes of tossing 5 coins? Each coin can land either heads or tails. On the large scale, we are concerned only with the total heads and tails and not with the order in which heads and tails appear. The following table shows all possibilities along with numbers of possible configurations (or microstate; a detailed description of every element of a system). For example, 4 heads and 1 tail instance may occur on 5 different configurations, with any one of the 5 coins showing tail and all the rest heads. (HHHHT, HHHTH, HHTHH, HTHHH, THHHH)
- 5 heads, 0 tails: 1 microstate
- 4 heads, 1 tail: 5 microstates
- 3 heads, 2 tails: 10 microstates
- 2 heads, 3 tails: 10 microstates
- 1 head, 4 tails: 5 microstates
- 0 head, 5 tails: 1 microstate
Note that all of these conclusions are based on the crucial assumption that each microstate is equally probable. Otherwise, the analysis will be erroneous.
The two most orderly possibilities are 5 heads or 5 tails. (They are more structured than the others. ) They are also the least likely, only 2 out of 32 possibilities. The most disorderly possibilities are 3 heads and 2 tails and its reverse. (They are the least structured. ) The most disorderly possibilities are also the most likely, with 20 out of 32 possibilities for the 3 heads and 2 tails and its reverse. If we start with an orderly array like 5 heads and toss the coins, it is very likely that we will get a less orderly array as a result, since 30 out of the 32 possibilities are less orderly. So even if you start with an orderly state, there is a strong tendency to go from order to disorder, from low entropy to high entropy. The reverse can happen, but it is unlikely.
This result becomes dramatic for larger systems. Consider what happens if you have 100 coins instead of just 5. The most orderly arrangements (most structured) are 100 heads or 100 tails. The least orderly (least structured) is that of 50 heads and 50 tails. There is only 1 way (1 microstate) to get the most orderly arrangement of 100 heads. The total number of different ways 100 coins can be tossed—is an impressively large 1.27×1030. Now, if we start with an orderly macrostate like 100 heads and toss the coins, there is a virtual certainty that we will get a less orderly macrostate. If you tossed the coins once each second, you could expect to get either 100 heads or 100 tails once in 2×1022 years! In contrast, there is an 8% chance of getting 50 heads, a 73% chance of getting from 45 to 55 heads, and a 96% chance of getting from 40 to 60 heads. Disorder is highly likely.
Real Gas
The fantastic growth in the odds favoring disorder that we see in going from 5 to 100 coins continues as the number of entities in the system increases. In a volume of 1 m3, roughly 1023 molecules (or the order of magnitude of Avogadro's number) are present in a gas. The most likely conditions (or macrostate) for the gas are those we see all the time—a random distribution of atoms in space with a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of speeds in random directions, as predicted by kinetic theory as shown in (a). This is the most disorderly and least structured condition we can imagine.
Kinetic Theory
(a) The ordinary state of gas in a container is a disorderly, random distribution of atoms or molecules with a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of speeds. It is so unlikely that these atoms or molecules would ever end up in one corner of the container that it might as well be impossible. (b) With energy transfer, the gas can be forced into one corner and its entropy greatly reduced. But left alone, it will spontaneously increase its entropy and return to the normal conditions, because they are immensely more likely.
In contrast, one type of very orderly and structured macrostate has all of the atoms in one corner of a container with identical velocities. There are very few ways to accomplish this (very few microstates corresponding to it), and so it is exceedingly unlikely ever to occur. (See (b). ) Indeed, it is so unlikely that we have a law saying that it is impossible, which has never been observed to be violated—the second law of thermodynamics.