 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In Our Time
|
 |
|
 |
MISSED A PROGRAMME?
Go to the Listen Again page |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROGRAMME INFO |
|
|
|
|
|
The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life. |
|
|
|
|
LISTEN AGAIN |
|
|
|
|
PRESENTER |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Biography
Interview
Quiz
|
|
|
|
| "I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROGRAMME DETAILS |
|
|
|
 |
|
THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
The Second Law of Thermodynamics can be very simply stated like this: "Energy spontaneously tends to flow from being concentrated in one place to becoming diffused and spread out". It was first formulated to explain how a steam engine worked, it can explain why a cup of tea goes cold if you don't drink it and how a pan of water can be heated to boil an egg.
But its application has been found to be rather grander than this. The Second Law is now used to explain the big bang, the expansion of the cosmos and even suggests our inexorable passage through time towards the 'heat death' of the universe. It's been called the most fundamental law in all of science, and CP Snow in his Two Cultures wrote: "Not knowing the Second Law of Thermodynamics is like never having read a work of Shakespeare".
What is the Second Law? What are its implications for time and energy in the universe, and does it tend to be refuted by the existence of life and the theory of evolution?
Contributors
John Gribbin, Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex
Peter Atkins, Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University
Monica Grady, Head of Petrology and Meteoritics at the Natural History Museum
Read audience reactions to this edition of the programme |
|
|
RELATED LINKS
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| | | | |
|
