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Photonics Dictionary

law of reversibility

In physics, the law of reversibility is often associated with the concept of reversibility in thermodynamics. The law asserts that any process that occurs in a closed system can, in theory, be reversed, returning the system to its initial state. This idea is also known as the Reversibility Postulate.

In a reversible process, the system undergoes changes in such a way that, if it were run in the opposite direction, it would exactly retrace its steps. In other words, both the forward and reverse processes would be indistinguishable if observed on a macroscopic scale. This implies that there is no net increase in entropy during a reversible process.

It is important to note that perfect reversibility is an idealization, and in real-world situations, achieving complete reversibility is often not possible due to factors like friction, heat dissipation, and other sources of irreversibility. The concept of reversibility is fundamental to the study of thermodynamics and helps define the theoretical limits of the efficiency of various thermodynamic processes.

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