So I said in my blog, “Why Mechanical Engineers Know How to Get Free Gas”, that I would explain why mechanical engineering majors are trying to break the first two laws of thermodynamics. When talking about thermodynamics I am always reminded of an episode on “The Simpsons”. During the episode the teachers go on strike leaving Bart and Lisa to stay at home. While discussing the situation with Marge, Homer tells her about the perpetual motion machine that Lisa created that keeps going faster and faster. At the end of the scene Homer calls Lisa into his bedroom and shouts, “In this House we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!”
I remember as a kid when first seeing this episode I did not know what thermodynamics was. Being a mechanical engineering major I have taken two classes on thermodynamics and am currently taking a combustion science class so I have a pretty good understanding of what it is.
The Laws of thermodynamics govern how natural phenomena and machines in this world can operate. There are about four laws but I will only cover the two most important which happens to be the first and second.
The first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of energy which means energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only stored. An example of breaking the first law of thermodynamics would be putting gas into a car that runs solely on gas and allowing the car to still run even after all the gas is gone. This means you are creating energy out of nothing and thus are breaking the first law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy which can get pretty advanced. In the simplest explanation, the second law implies that you cannot achieve an efficiency of greater than 100%. If you do you are breaking the second laws of thermodynamics.
So those are the two most important laws of thermodynamics. The ultimate goal of mechanical engineers is to break these two laws. If these two laws were to ever be broken, the field of mechanical engineering would pretty much cease to exist in fields that use machines to do work such as automobile engines.
So if anyone who thinks they can build a machine capable breaking the first two laws of thermodynamics, Good Luck!
Fight the Good Fight
Ya Boy Archie Wright!
