Question

5. Consider a system consisting of an egg in an incubator. The white and yolk of the egg contain proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. If fertilized, the egg is transformed from a single cell to a complex organism. Discuss this irreversible process in terms of the entropy changes in the system, surroundings, and universe. Be sure that you first clearly define the system and surroundings.

Answer 1

According to the question, we could consider the developing chick as the system and the surrounding of this system would be nutrients, external environment, or world and eggshell that affects the system. The entropy of the system decreases with the transformation of the development of the cell into a chick drastically.

In this system initially, it has a low entropy condition as it the surrounding have complex fuel molecule compare to the system, however, during the period of incubation the complex molecule of surrounding fuel release in the high quantity of CO2 and water molecules and leads to the higher entropy of surrounding than the decrease in the entropy of the system.