Final answer:
The term 'system' refers to the matter and its environment involved in energy transfers, playing a crucial role in the study of thermodynamics and entailing concepts such as open and closed systems, entropy, and the laws governing energy efficiency and transfer.
Step-by-step explanation:
Scientists use the term system to refer to the matter and its environment involved in energy transfers. In thermodynamics, this concept is fundamental to understanding how energy moves and changes form. The opposite of a system is the surroundings, which includes everything not within the system under study. Energy transfer can occur in both open and closed systems. In an open system, energy can exchange with the surroundings, whereas, in a closed system, it cannot. Concepts like entropy, the measure of a system's disorder, are vital for comprehending the second law of thermodynamics, which describes the efficiency and direction of energy transfers. Additionally, every system has a certain amount of order, and to increase this order, energy must be input, reducing entropy.