Reversible vs Irreversible

[Yea Eun Lee 1H]

Is it possible to show an infinitesimal change of the gas expansion experimentally (like has anyone found a video of an experiment that shows a reversible gas expansion)? Or is the concept of reversibility theoretical?

[Nora Sharp 1C]

In the case of a reversible expansion, the system does the maximum possible amount of work. All heat is converted into work, which models a perfect engine, something that doesn't exist. A reversible expansion is 100% efficient and would not be found in real life, to the best of my knowledge.

I suppose someone could try to simulate a reversible expansion, but they would have to slowly expand a gas over an infinitely small number of incremental pressure changes, which would take an infinitely large amount of time to do. At the end of the day I think you could get (sort-of) close to a reversible expansion in a lab simulation, but you'd never quite get there.

[Cyianna 2F]

Right, reversible expansion focuses more on the matter that all heat is used toward work. As far as I've seen, there hasn't been any experiments looking into the matter.