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Irreversibility versus heat loss: judge the statement Statement: “There is a loss of heat in an irreversible process.” Choose whether the statement is correct or incorrect.

Difficulty: Medium

Correct Answer: Disagree (the statement is incorrect)

Explanation:

Concept/Approach

  • Irreversibility is about entropy production due to finite gradients, friction, mixing, shocks, etc.
  • Heat loss is neither necessary nor sufficient for irreversibility.


Illustration
Adiabatic throttling (Joule–Thomson) is irreversible with no heat transfer (Q = 0).Conversely, a reversible isothermal process transfers heat but can be reversible.

Final Answer
Disagree — irreversibility is about entropy generation, not necessarily about heat loss.

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