Which law of nature indicates that the amount of available energy is always decreasing?

Study for the CRST History of Life (290) – Section B05 exam. Prepare with targeted questions, hints, and detailed explanations to ensure success. Ace your exam with confidence!

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is fundamental in understanding the behavior of energy within systems. It states that in any energy transfer or transformation, the total entropy of a closed system will always either increase or remain constant over time; it will never decrease. Entropy is often described as a measure of disorder or randomness in a system, and as energy is transformed, some of it becomes less available to do work, which effectively leads to a decrease in the amount of useful, available energy.

This concept implies that as time progresses, energy will tend to become more dispersed and less concentrated, meaning that processes in the universe tend to move toward a state of greater disorder. In practical terms, this means that energy conversions are not 100% efficient, and some energy is always lost as heat or increased disorder. Therefore, the Second Law provides insight into why the amount of available energy decreases in any natural process over time, fundamentally shaping our understanding of energy use in both biological and physical systems.

The other laws mentioned, such as the First Law of Thermodynamics, which focuses on the conservation of energy, do not address the decrease in available energy, while the Law of Conservation of Mass deals with matter rather than energy, and Newton's Third Law describes forces, not

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