Crash Course Engineering

The First & Zeroth Laws of Thermodynamics (1x9)

Air date: Jul 12, 2018

In today’s episode we’ll explore thermodynamics and some of the ways it shows up in our daily lives. We’ll learn the zeroth law of thermodynamics, what it means to reach a thermal equilibrium, and define the first law of thermodynamics. We’ll also explore how stationary, adiabatic, and isochoric processes can make our lives as engineers a little easier. Note: Different branches of engineering sometimes define the first law of thermodynamics differently, depending on how work is defined. Essentially, work released from a system might be defined as a positive value or a negative value, and thus the first law can be defined as either Q-W or Q+W. Both are acceptable forms, depending on how the system is defined! We chose to focus on only one definition here to limit the confusion.