[tishlynn]

Say that the frying of a hen's egg is spontaneous and has a -ΔG.  Does feeding the fried egg to a hen and waiting for it to lay another egg violate the second law of thermodynamics?  Explain fully.

I was thinking that it was no because the process is not directly reversed...however, i'm not sure. Also this is for a college level p-chem course
Any thoughts...

[Corribus]

Say that the frying of a hen's egg is spontaneous and has a -ΔG.  Does feeding the fried egg to a hen and waiting for it to lay another egg violate the second law of thermodynamics?  Explain fully.

Well, an easy litmus test is: can you do it?  If you can, then the second law of thermodynamics can't be violated because... well, because that's why they call it a LAW of thermodynamics.  The question is kind of vague, because it's not specified whether this is a closed system or not.

Let's take a thought experiment.  Suppose the only thing you fed the chicken was its own eggs. (This would be equivalent to a closed system.) That is: chicken lays an egg, you feed it the egg (but nothing else), it lays an egg, you feed it the egg, it lays an egg, you feed it the egg, and so on.  Could you do this indefinitely?  Why or why not?