In organic chemistry, different reactions can take place at vastly different speeds. To better understand whether a reaction actually will happen, and how useful that reaction is, we need to understand thermodynamics and kinetics. In...

Salt dissolves in water; oil does not. But why? You can think of that glass of water as a big, bumpin' dance party where the water molecules are always switching dance partners -- and they'd much rather dance with a salt ion. John...

You've felt cold before. Sometimes it's cold outside. But what if I told you that "cold" isn't real? There's no substance or quantity called "cold" in science. We can't measure the amount of "cold" in something. Instead it's about what's...

The past is different from the future. Why?

Was an incredible drop in entropy responsible for the Big Bang? If that's the case, this would lead us to conclude that a great many other things are possible, including the likelihood that you are a Boltzmann Brain.

Our universe is prone to increasing disorder and chaos. So how did it generate the extreme complexity we see in life? Actually, the laws of physics themselves may demand it.

In this video Paul Andersen explains how the second law of thermodynamics applies to reversible and irreversible processes. In a reversible process the net change in entropy is zero. In and irreversible process the entropy will always...

Paul Andersen attempts to explain Gibbs Free Energy. He begins by using three spontaneous reactions to explain how a change in enthalpy, entropy and temperature can affect the free energy of a system. He then applies this concept to...

It's time to heat things up! LITERALLY! It's time for Hank to talk about the history of Thermodynamics!!! It's messy and there are a lot of people who came up with some ideas that worked and other that didn't and then some ideas that...

Entropy is surely one of the most intriguing and misunderstood concepts in all of physics. The entropy of the universe must always increase - so says the second law of thermodynamics. It's a law that seems emergent from deeper laws - ...

The laws of thermodynamics are cornerstones of physics - but one of them is more breakable than it appears.

Energy is like the bestest best friend ever and yet, most of the time we take it for granted. Hank feels bad for our friend and wants us to learn more about it so that we can understand what it's trying to tell us - like...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how you can use the Gibbs Free Energy equation to determine if a process is spontaneous or not spontaneous. If the _G is less than zero the process is spontaneous. If the _G is greater than zero the...

Life is chaos and the universe tends toward disorder. But why? If you think about it, there are only a few ways for things to be arranged in an organized manner, but there are nearly infinite other ways for those same things to...

In this video Paul Andersen explains that entropy is simply the dispersion of matter or energy. He begins with a series of video that show the natural direction of processes. According to the second law of thermodynamics the entropy...

In this video Paul Andersen discriminates between spontaneous (or thermodynamically favored) processes and those that are not spontaneous. A spontaneous process requires no external energy source. If the enthalpy change in a reaction...

Paul Andersen describes how free energy is used by organisms to grow, maintain order, and reproduce. A brief discussion of the first and second law of thermodynamics is also included. Disruptions in the amount of free energy can cause...

We’ve introduced the 0th and 1st laws of thermodynamics, so now it’s time to move on to the second law and how we came to understand it. We’ll explain the differences between the first and second law, and we’ll talk about the Carnot...

If you've spent any time trying to explode a pumpkin with rubber bands you know that they have a distinct smell to them when stretched, and you have physics to thank for that.

Nothing is guaranteed in life except death, taxes, and entropy. What do other life forms have to teach us about staying alive as we get old, and will we ever conquer death?

Chemicals are in everything we see, and the reactions between them can look like anything from rust on a spoon to an explosion on your stovetop. But why do these reactions happen in the first place? Kareem Jarrah answers this question by...

There's a concept that's crucial to chemistry and physics. It helps explain why physical processes go one way and not the other: why ice melts, why cream spreads in coffee, why air leaks out of a punctured tire. It's entropy, and it's...

The common interpretation of entropy is that it is a measure of disorder in the universe. The universe is on path to more and more disorder. And this is the reason time is thought to flow forward.Is entropy a...

What drives natural phenomena? Why does entropy only increase or stay the same. Why does a pencil on its tip fall to the table?

Things always tend towards their lowest energy state. Why is nature driven this...