Recently, (though can’t recall exactly where) I read something that referenced …oh, now I remember-- I was reading a novel by C.P. Snow (A Coat of Varnish) and then went online to learn more about him. Seems he became famous at one point for a lecture entitled The Two Cultures in which he said that the gap between science and the humanities was a troubling one for the future fate of the world. He said that ignorance among scientists concerning the arts and ignorance among those in humanities concerning science was creating a dangerous situation in which both disciplines were functioning without the necessary tools to perform their respective functions in a productive (or non-destructive) manner. At one point in the lecture he said :

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'


This stopped me in my tracks since I was pretty sure he had me stumped too.
So onward…online…and into the world of thermodynamics.

Holy Shit!
I say to myself --as a predominantly right brained person…

...because, though in basic theory it’s not really that complicated, the explanations and definitions I find are so inconsistent and diverse as to make me feel like I’m not really absorbing it. Forget the math stuff, I’m just trying to find some simple language a la “Themodynamics for Dummies”. But it seems I need to do a lot more studying before I attain the level of “Dummy”.

Okay, maybe if I start with the 1st law before trying to tackle number two: And that yields:

qrev/T or free energy = ΔG and ΔS

Thanks. Next please,

"In all cases in which work is produced by the agency of heat, a quantity of heat is consumed which is proportional to the work done; and conversely, by the expenditure of an equal quantity of work an equal quantity of heat is produced.

You can have a seat too...

A change in the internal energy of a closed thermodynamic system is equal to the difference between the heat supplied to the system and the amount of work done by the system on its surroundings.

Anyone else?

Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another.

Whew…much better. Thanks, now I think I got it.

Now I’m ready for the 2nd law.
Whoa, not so fast Kowalski, seems that after they came up with the first law they realized they had left out an even more fundamental one—so they called it:

The Zeroth Law

The Zeroth Law simply says there is no heat flow between objects that are the same temperature.

Got it. Hot milk in hot coffee doesn’t cool the coffee that much.
Now on to number 2.

The Second Law says:
entropy always increases in a closed system.

So I go spend some time in the world of Entropy before going back to the second law simply expressed as:

Heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder location to a hotter location.

Got that too. Hot things want to cool down but cool things like to stay cool.

I keep going and finally get to something I can really relate to:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun, 

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
--Robert Frost.

The "something" that hates walls is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There is a natural direction for walls. The natural direction is to fall apart. Walls don’t naturally fall together. And if you don’t work at keeping it together…it will inevitably fall apart.

Aha! The second law of thermodynamics is my marriage!

Bingo! Shoulda gone to the poets right away…

Now I’m ready for the third law and learn that:
If an object reaches the absolute zero of temperature its atoms will stop moving.

I'm in NY. It's January. Been there. Done that.

And then of course I remember that this all began with C.P. Snow—so I go find him and he’s just what the doctor ordered.
Snow summed it up like this:

First Law: You cannot win
Second Law: You cannot even break even
Third: You cannot get out of the game