If logic was taught to physicists and chemists, students would easily
grasp the following argument:
Premise A: A system absorbs heat from a reservoir, completely
converts it into work (lifts a weight) and returns to its initial
state.
Premise B: Initially, the system is in equilibrium.
Therefore, C: Apart from the energy decrease in the reservoir and the
lifted weight, other changes in the surroundings have necessarily
taken place.
Students would easily see that the argument is valid - if the
premises are true, someone must set the engine in motion and this
someone undergoes changes, i.e. the conclusion, C, is also true. If
they had studied logic, they would know that, in this case, the set
A, B, non-C
is an inconsistency, i.e. the three propositions cannot
simultaneously be true. But then the argument
B, non-C THEREFORE non-A
is also valid. The above argument cane be stated like this:
A system cannot absorb heat from a reservoir, completely convert it
into work and return to its initial state in the absence of other
associated changes in the surroundings.
An equivalent statement:
No process is possible in which the sole result is absorption of
heat from a reservoir and its complete conversion into work.
So students will see that the above "second laws" are just
trivialities - roughly speaking, they state that the engine would not
work unless someone sets it in motion. In the absence of expertise in
logic, however, these "second laws" sound just as serious as all the
other. The situation in thermodynamics is analogous to that in
relativity - without logic, the confusions will never be overcome.