If you want the 8th grade answer, then: fridges, car engines, air conditioners,

power stations. these are all heat engines, and are textbook examples of
thermodynamic cycles. But if you are talking about the "laws of
thermodynamics", then those are at play in practically all physical
interactions - the act of one atom touching another atom can be described in
terms of thermodynamics, so you should be asking the question the other
way round: "What physical things in our daily lives are NOT directly or
indirectly affected by the laws of thermodynamics?". You'll find the answer
is: very little, laws of thermodynamics pretty much govern all physical
things.
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What are some interesting applications of thermodynamics in our daily life?
I was wondering, how knowing these laws of physics affects our life.
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Yuan Gao
Yuan Gao, Engineer
3 upvotes by Ewertton Tadeu, Dave Calhoun, and Aman Bakshi.
If you want the 8th grade answer, then: fridges, car engines, air conditioners,
power stations. these are all heat engines, and are textbook examples of
thermodynamic cycles. But if you are talking about the "laws of
thermodynamics", then those are at play in practically all physical
interactions - the act of one atom touching another atom can be described in
terms of thermodynamics, so you should be asking the question the other
way round: "What physical things in our daily lives are NOT directly or
indirectly affected by the laws of thermodynamics?". You'll find the answer
is: very little, laws of thermodynamics pretty much govern all physical
things.

Written 16 Aug, 2013.

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Can you give me a list of the most interesting topics/applications of
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Quora User
Quora User, MechEng undergrad
4 upvotes by Quora User, Srikant Dalai, Gnana Sai, (more)
Everything is thermodynamics.

I kid you not.

Thermodynamics is the most present science in your life. In fact, it is so

present in your daily life it became common sense. It is much more common
sense than the examples given in the other answers (cars, refrigerators,
coffee makers, electronic devices, etc, those are all usual applications of
thermodynamics, but you don't understand thermodynamics by
understanding them).

If you are cooking fish and you accidentally drop the bass (pun intended), you
know that it is going straight to the floor. Nobody has to tell you that. How do
you know? Because the bass has to go to its state of higher entropy. And you
know that it is going to accelerate towards the floor and not drop slowly
because it has to conserve energy. You also know that when it hits the floor,

you're going to hear a slappy sound because that is how its kinetic energy is
dissipated.

When you are cooking, you know the bass is going to get hot because you are
transferring energy (in form of heat) to it. And you know you have to eat it
otherwise you body will have no way of producing work to get you through
your daily job

By the end of the day, you are exhausted and accidentally sleep on the
wheel. You wreck the car but, thankfully, you are out of it alive because the
hood and chassis of the car were able to absorb the energy of the impact in
form of plastic deformation.

You get home and you notice your roommate is cleaning the house. You know
that before coming in because you can smell. That only happened because
the molecules of the good smelling stuff diffused in the air to achieve a state
of higher entropy.

You sit on the couch and watch TV. The news are showing a demonstration
occurring in your city because your government decided to avoid doing work
and now the obvious consequence is for the population to achieve a state of
very high entropy and dissipate the energy in form of heat which might end
burning the current president.

Thermodynamics is not the study of heat and work alone. Thermodynamics is

the study of the dynamics and behavior of energy and its manifestations.
Energy is the only thing that keeps things going. You are energy.

You are thermodynamics.

Thermodynamics can be easily seen every day.Right from the moment you
wake up and a make a coffee from coffeemaker (1st law applies there) then
you take milk out of fridge(Heat engine in reverse!!).You switch on the t.v. it
gets heated up a bit(joules heating).You head outside home,you feel
hot/cold(heat transfer).You start your car (car engine-a classic example as
pointed out by Yuan Gao).And we can go on and on finding thermodynamics

at work everywhere! Right from your cellphone,a.c. to your own body(it

exchanges heat with surroundings).

If this too doesn't excites you to read about laws of thermodynamics, then i
think you should watch this video on thermal expansion and heat by (Prof
Walter Lewin:this man is so passionate about physics,my favorite) :
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr0yMWdWie0

Hope that helps!

"Old Chemists never die: they reach thermodynamical equilibrium"

"Entropy isn't what it used to be."

(P.S.~ you should know thermodyamics to get these jokes! :D)

n Kitchen:
1. Water which is boiling vigorously is at 100'C. Water boiling very gently is at
100'C. you can't increase the temperature of water by increasing the vigor
boiling. So while cooking, if your recipe start boiling, reduce the heat input to
minimum. It saves gas without wasting time.
2. While using pressure cooker, don't let it whistle heavily. While, whiling,
steam goes out and carry away a lot of thermal energy. while it is about to
whistle, reduce energy input.
Thermodynamics: Lesson Plans for E3s

Thermodynamics Lesson Plans 1-11 are published in Real Life Examples in

Thermodynamics.

Contact Ruani Ribe for complimentary copies

Concept

Topic

1. 2nd Law Concepts: Entropy

Balloons, Bicycle Tires, Turbine, Milky Coffee

2. 1st Law Concepts: 1st Law of Thermodynamics
Conditioning, Photosynthesis, iPod

Chips, Classroom Air-

3. 2nd Law Concepts: 2nd Law of Thermodynamics Large Fan (Air Circulator),
Cup of Tea, Geothermal Heat Engine
4. 1st Law Concepts: Systems, Properties & Pure Substances
Maker, Exploding Soup
5. 2nd law Concepts: Exergy
Personal Performance

Coffee

Frothy Drinks, Air Cars, 'Destructive' Walls,

6. Power Cycles: Vapor Power Cycles

Plant

Water Pistol, Kettle, Geothermal Power

7. Power Cycles: Gas Power Cycles

Gas Turbine

Spark Ignition Engine, Diesel Engine,

8. Thermodynamic Applications: Refrigeration & Heat Pumps

Personal
Refrigerator, Champagne Cooler, Dorm Room Air-Conditioning & Heating
9. Thermodynamic Applications: Non-reacting Mixtures
Transportation, Desalination

Landfill Gas, Gas

10. Thermodynamic Applications: Psychronic Applications Sweating Drink

Cans, Misted Glasses, Morning Dew, Windshield Misting, Cooling Towers
11. Thermodynamics of Chemical Transformation:Reacting Mixtures &
Combustion

Birthday Candles, Cooking Pasta, Engine Heat Losses

12. Systems of Particles:Steady Stream of Particles Desk Fan, Hairdryer, Wind
Turbine**
13. Heat Transfer

Cooking with Microwaves

14. Heat Transfer

Sous Vide Cooking

15. Reynolds Transport Theorem, Lagrangian vs. Eulerian viewpoints

Motion Toys
16. Specific Heat Capacity, Degrees of Freedom

Liquid

Egg Cartons

Thermodynamics: Ideas for New E3s

Concept

Topic

Gas Compression

Balloons*

Heat Transfer

Baking A Potato

Thermal Boundary Layer Frozen Food Thawing*

Equations of State How a Fire Extinguisher Works*
Conservation of Energy

Energy Skate Park

Pharmacokinetics (Chemical)
Bites
Thermal Energy

Cobra Problem: Pharmacokinetics of Snake

Microwaves

*Source: Ilene Busch-Vishniac, Tom Kibler, Patricia B. Campbell, Eann

Patterson, Darrell Guillaume, Jeffrey Jarosz, Constantine Chassapis, Ashley
Emery, Glenn Ellis. Horace Whitworth, Susan Metz, Suzanne Brainard &
Pradosh Ray

**Source: Real Life Examples in Dynamics. Contact Alison Dana for

complimentary copies
Melting Ice Cube
Every day, ice needs to be maintained at a temperature below the freezing

point of water to remain solid. On hot summer days, however, people often
take out a tray of ice to cool beverages. In the process, they witness the first
and second laws of thermodynamics. For example, someone might put an ice
cube into a glass of warm lemonade and then forget to drink the beverage.
An hour or two later, they will notice that the ice has melted but the
temperature of the lemonade has cooled. This is because the total amount of
heat in the system has remained the same, but has just gravitated towards
equilibrium, where both the former ice cube (now water) and the lemonade
are the same temperature. This is, of course, not a completely closed system.
The lemonade will eventually become warm again, as heat from the
environment is transferred to the glass and its contents.

Sweating in a Crowded Room

The human body obeys the laws of thermodynamics. Consider the experience
of being in a small crowded room with lots of other people. In all likelihood,
you'll start to feel very warm and will start sweating. This is the process your
body uses to cool itself off. Heat from your body is transferred to the sweat.
As the sweat absorbs more and more heat, it evaporates from your body,
becoming more disordered and transferring heat to the air, which heats up
the air temperature of the room. Many sweating people in a crowded room,
"closed system," will quickly heat things up. This is both the first and second
laws of thermodynamics in action: No heat is lost; it is merely transferred,
and approaches equilibrium with maximum entropy.

Taking a Bath
Consider a situation where a person takes a very long bath. Immediately
during and after filling up the bathtub, the water is very hot -- as high as 120
degrees Fahrenheit. The person will then turn off the water and submerge his
body into it. Initially, the water feels comfortably warm, because the water's
temperature is higher than the person's body temperature. After some time,
however, some heat from the water will have transferred to the individual,
and the two temperatures will meet. After a bit more time has passed,
because this is not a closed system, the bath water will cool as heat is lost to
the atmosphere. The person will cool as well, but not as much, since his
internal homeostatic mechanisms help keep his temperature adequately
elevated.

Flipping a Light Switch

We rely on electricity to turn on our lights. Electricity is a form of energy; it is,

however, a secondary source. A primary source of energy must be converted
into electricity before we can flip on the lights. For example, water energy can
be harnessed by building a dam to hold back the water of a large lake. If we
slowly release water through a small opening in the dam, we can use the
driving pressure of the water to turn a turbine. The work of the turbine can be
used to generate electricity with the help of a generator. The electricity is
sent to our homes via power lines. The electricity was not created out of
nothing; it is the result of transforming water energy from the lake into
another energy form.