Re: Entropy question

"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote

> There's enough gas over large regions in interstellar space that it forms
> a considerable gravitating mass, and it "falls" together. Unless the
> gravity goes away, the gas won't disperse again without some new
> influence. The amounts of gas we deal with in the laboratory are much
> too small for self-gravitation to have any effect. But we can compress
> ten moles of gas to 2000 psi, and gravity can't.

Having read all the replies, I see what's going on. The gas in space
heats up as entropy increase, while the gas in the laboratory cools
down as entropy increases. And when the gas gets hot enough, it
can access nuclear forces as an energy source.

To say the gas in space has lower entropy before it gravitates together
just means it has a great deal of potential energy that could be liberated
under the right conditions.

What was conceptually challenging is the fact that, thinking in terms
of entropy doing work, the gas needs to get to a higher entropy state
(form a star) before it can access the all the potential lower-entropy.

--
Craig Franck
craig.franck@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cortland, NY


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