Suppose you viewed a movie that was running backwards. You would see lots of odd things happen: streams would flow uphill, a diver would emerge upwards and go back to the diving board etc. If these backward moving events actually happened in nature, which principle or principles of physics would be violated?
A. Newton's Laws of Motion
B. The Second Law of Thermodynamics
C. Both of the above
D. The Law of Conservation of Energy
E. All of the above
My guess is C. Thanks!
Why would Newtons laws be violated?
You're correct! The principle or principles of physics that would be violated if these backward moving events actually happened in nature are both A. Newton's Laws of Motion and B. The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Here's an explanation of why:
A. Newton's Laws of Motion:
Newton's laws describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting upon it. The third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, if an object is moving in one direction due to a force, it cannot suddenly change its motion and move in the opposite direction without an external force acting on it. Thus, in our example, where streams flow uphill and a diver emerges upwards, the natural flow of these events would violate Newton's laws of motion.
B. The Second Law of Thermodynamics:
The second law of thermodynamics states that in any isolated system, the entropy (or disorder) always tends to increase over time. This is often referred to as the arrow of time, where events tend to happen in a particular order. In our example of a movie running backwards, we would observe events occurring in reverse order. However, this violates the second law of thermodynamics because it would imply a decrease in entropy over time, which is contrary to the natural direction of events.
Therefore, the correct answer is indeed C. Both Newton's Laws of Motion and the Second Law of Thermodynamics would be violated if the events described in the question actually happened in nature.