Question

A refrigerator causes a transfer of thermal energy from a cooler region to a hotter region. The separation of hot and cold causes an increase in order. The following two questions deal with this situation. 1. If the refrigerator door was left open, what happens to the temperature in the room? Explain your answer using the Law of Increasing Disorder.

Answer 1

Answer: if the refrigerator door is left open initial the room would be cold due to cold air from inside the refrigerator, but after a while the room gets warmer back.

Explanation: The law of increasing disorder(Entropy an increase in disorder of a system.) This simply means heat flows spontaneously from a hot space to a cold space, but won't flow spontaneously the other way this means it is irreversible. This applies to anything that flows since cooled air would flow from the refrigerator when opened due to heat removed from the refrigerator compactment the room would be cooled for a little while before becoming warmer again, this is so because the condenser, compressor and evaporator of the the refrigerator are now exposed to same environment of space. This is why an Air-conditioning system evaporator is separated from the heat generating components.