Abstract: The concept of energy lost by expanding systems is reconsidered. The implications to thermodynamic are profound especially to concepts such as reversibility and the second law thermodynamics.

 

Conclusions: In its simplest context the energy lost by an ideal heat engine during its volume expansion step of its cycle, can be explained in terms of the displacement of the Earth’s atmosphere and this is a form of “lost work”. To deny this, is to deny that Earth’s atmosphere has mass, which exists in a gravitational field, which must be displaced by expanding systems! Moreover, this displacement of our atmosphere requires work, which generally lost onto Earth’s atmosphere’s gases. Understand that concepts like entropy, and the second law, were formulated in the 19th century to explain the previously unexplainable, namely the work lost by the Carnot engine. Sure the second law is empirically proven here on Earth, but only because it is poorly conceived and mankind designed it that way, using circular logic. And just because we formulate definitions to explain what we witness, does not render that definition as the simplest and most logical explanation. The fact that the very definition of entropy remains controversial to this day, a century and a half after its conception, demonstrates an inherent weakness in its structure. As for our formulating the second law: If we concerned ourselves with a system’s surrounding as much as we did with the system itself, then the second law may never needed writing. There is no denying that the second law applies to isolated systems, but what constitutes an isolated system was questioned. Based upon our realizations, the applicability of the second law becomes too limited to bestow any true value. The implications to thermodynamics are profound!