– Why really can’t a machine convert the whole part of energy given to it into work? What causes a fraction of it to be lost, even when there’s no dissipative forces?

Question

– Why really can’t a machine convert the whole part of energy given to it into work? What causes a fraction of it to be lost, even when there’s no dissipative forces?

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Answer 1

The short and simple answer is that energy wants to be as spread out as possible. To prevent losses, you need to reduce ways in which energy can escape the system.

Exactly how it escapes depends on your device, but there’s so much going on in some machines, a lot of energy can be lost.