All Problems

Second law of thermodynamics, entropy

Problem 2.149

A weightless piston divides a thermally insulated cylinder into two equal parts. One part contains one mole of an ideal gas with adiabatic exponent \(\gamma\), the other is evacuated. The initial gas temperature is \(T_{0} .\) The piston is released and the gas fills the whole volume of the cylinder. Then the piston is slowly displaced back to the initial position. Find the increment of the internal energy and the entropy of the gas resulting from these two processes.

Reveal Answer
ΔU=(2γ11)RT0/(γ1),ΔS=Rln2\Delta U=\left(2^{\gamma-1}-1\right) R T_{0} /(\gamma-1), \Delta S=R ln 2