Misconceptions regarding the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: A consequence of students' selection process

Abstract

A survey was given to a Physics 3 class to assess their interpretations of the refrigerator and entropy statements of the second law of thermodynamics. The results show that 80% of the respondents have misconceptions of the refrigerator statement, that were effects of the selection process in the encoding of information, and 41% for the entropy statement.