What is the name of the principle that states that heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder body to a hotter body?

The story behind the answer

The principle stating that heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder body to a hotter body is the Clausius statement.

German physicist Rudolf Clausius published this formulation of the second law of thermodynamics in 1854. Its fuller historical wording says that heat cannot pass from a colder to a warmer body without another accompanying change. In modern terms, heat naturally transfers down a temperature difference, from hot to cold.

A refrigerator does not violate the statement. It moves heat from a colder interior to warmer surroundings by using external work, supplied by its compressor and power source. The process is therefore not spontaneous and has an additional change: energy is consumed to drive the transfer.

The Clausius statement is equivalent, under the first law of thermodynamics, to the Kelvin–Planck statement, which limits the operation of cyclic heat engines. Carnot’s theorem is related to the maximum efficiency of ideal engines, but it is not the canonical name for this cold-to-hot prohibition. Le Chatelier’s principle concerns how equilibria respond to disturbances, not heat flow itself.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

Add question to a list

Choose a list to keep this question in: