An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Heat cannot be transferred from a colder to a hotter body without some other effect, i.e. without → work being done. Expressed in terms of → entropy: the entropy of an → isolated system tends toward a maximum and its available energy tends toward a minimum.
   

2. In language of → statistical physics, an isolated physical system will tend toward an equilibrium → macrostate with as large a total → entropy as possible, because then the number of → microstates is the largest. See also → Kelvin’s postulate, → Clausius’s postulate.

See also: → second; → law;
→ thermodynamics.