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The laws of thermodynamics describe energy behavior in natural systems. There are three laws plus a zero law. The third law, also known as Nernst’s postulate, states that reaching absolute zero is impossible. Walther Hermann Nernst won the Nobel Prize for this work, but there was controversy over its discovery. The law is also stated in different terms.
The laws of thermodynamics express the behavior of energy in natural systems as expressed in our universe. There are three laws of thermodynamics plus a zero law. The first law of thermodynamics is called the law of conservation of energy. It says that the energy in the universe remains constant. The second law of thermodynamics says that heat cannot transfer from a colder to a hotter body as a result, and the entropy of the universe does not decrease. The third law of thermodynamics, in a nutshell, says that it is impossible to reach absolute zero. And the zero law says that two bodies in thermal equilibrium with a third body are in thermal equilibrium with each other.
The third law of thermodynamics which began with the so-called heat theorem, Wärmetheorem in German, was achieved in 1906 by Walther Hermann Nernst, who had received a post at the Second Institute of Chemistry of the University of Berlin and a permanent member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences of the previous year. The third law is sometimes known as Nernst’s postulate or even Nerst’s theorem.
This theorem and Einstein’s 1907 paper showing that quantum mechanics predicts that the specific heats of solids will tend to absolute zero as they reach temperatures near absolute zero appeared to be mutually reinforcing. This was important to Nernst because his theorem was clearly not a third law of thermodynamics because it could not be deduced from the first two laws of thermodynamics, but he felt that Einstein’s paper and Max Planck’s work on quantum mechanics helped reinforce the claims of his However, the theory is actually a third law of thermodynamics.
Nernst won the 1920 Nobel Prize in chemistry for this work, but there was controversy about it. American chemist Theodore Richards claimed to have discovered the third law of thermodynamics, rather than Nernst, as indicated by the possible interpretation of the graphs in a paper he wrote in 1902. Nernst’s former friend Svante Arrhenius, already in conflict with Nernst over a previous dispute, was brought into the discussion by Richards and exerted great efforts to oppose Nernst’s receipt of the Nobel Prize for this work.
The third law of thermodynamics is also stated in different terms. For example, “at absolute zero temperature, entropy reaches absolute zero.” Or “it is not possible to use a finite number of steps to reach absolute zero”. Or “if the thermal motion of the molecules were to cease, then the state of absolute zero would occur”. Or “The processes of entropy and system cease when a system approaches absolute zero.”
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