If a medieval-level society with access to things like magic (which itself follows the laws of thermodynamics) were to have some understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, how would the 2n law be stated?
I ask this because, in a medieval world the physical sciences are not advanced enough to have mathematically precise definitions of these laws.
The first law could be stated as: "Nothing can be created or destroyed, only change form." You get a vague idea about how this works. You need not define it using 'dU = dQ - W'.
How would the 2nd law be stated in a similar way?
I was thinking something like:
"The natural evolution of all things is towards decay and this process is unstoppable".
The thing is, this doesn't seem really like a re-statement of the 2nd law as much as it is a consequence of the 2nd law. Obviously the word 'decay' doesn't quite capture a full understanding of entropy but we're not going to be making use of natural logarithms in this kind of fantasy/magic using society.
Thanks in advance for any ideas!