Question

1 message Which process results in the increase in entropy of the universe? the cooling of a hot cup of coffee in room temperature air the melting of snow above 0 °C all of the above the evaporation of water from a desk at room temperature

Answer 1

Answer:

Melting of snow

Evaporation of water from desk

Explanation:

Processes that increase the entropy of the universe are those processes that have an increased disorderliness. We should note that there are three principal states of matter which are the liquid, gas and solid. The gaseous state is the most disorderly while the solid is the least disorderly.

Now. We can see that the cooling of a hot cup of coffee is a process that needs or leads to a loss in temperature which obviously decreases disorderliness of the universe.

The melting of snow however is a process that leads to an increase in the disorderliness of the universe. It entails moving from the solid state to the liquid state. It tends to move to a more disordered state indicating an increase in the entropy of the universe.

The evaporation of water from the desk is quite similar to that above. Hence since we are moving from the liquid to the gaseous state via evaporation, we can state that the entropy of the universe has increased since we have moved from a state with a lesser degree of disorderliness to a state that is more disordered I.e from liquid to gaseous state.