Suppose you ignite a sheet of paper from your notebook using a match and allow the fire to burn until it dies out. If you could measure all the energy in the resulting combustion products, and all the energy in the heat released (including whatever increase in disorder has occurred), would you predict this amount to be more than, less than, or the same as the amount of potential energy in the sheet of paper you started with? (You should ignore the activation energy provided by the match to light the paper.)
A)more energy than the paper
B)less energy than the paper
C)the same energy as the paper

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another. In the combustion of the paper, the chemical potential energy stored in the paper is converted into heat, light, and the chemical energy of the combustion products. The total energy, including the increase in disorder (entropy), remains the same as the original potential energy in the sheet of paper.

Suppose You Ignite a Sheet of Paper from Your Notebook