How often do quantum systems violate the second law of thermodynamics?
The likelihood of seeing quantum systems violating the second law of thermodynamics has been calculated by UCL scientists.
The likelihood of seeing quantum systems violating the second law of thermodynamics has been calculated by UCL scientists.
Quantum Physics
Oct 25, 2016
2
1410
According to the second law of thermodynamics, the total entropy of a closed process can increase or stay the same, but never decrease. The second law guarantees, for example, that an egg can wobble off a table and leave ...
General Physics
Nov 5, 2021
6
2867
This week, researchers proved empirically that life isn't fair. Also, you'll notice that, in a superhuman display of restraint, I managed to write a paragraph about the simulated universe hypothesis without once referencing ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- Maxwell’s demon may be making a comeback. Physicists know that the demon, an imaginary creature that decreases the entropy of a system, cannot exist in macroscopic systems due to the energy it requires ...
(Phys.org)—When you open your door on a cold winter day, the warm air from your home and the cold air from outside begin to mix and evolve toward thermal equilibrium, a state of complete entropy where the temperatures outside ...
The second law of thermodynamics delineates an asymmetry in how physical systems evolve over time, known as the arrow of time. In macroscopic systems, this asymmetry has a clear direction (e.g., one can easily notice if ...
Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, ETH Zurich, and Argonne National Laboratory, U.S, have described an extended quantum Maxwell's demon, a device locally violating the second law of thermodynamics ...
Quantum Physics
Dec 20, 2018
2
456
New research from UCL and the Universities of Gdansk, Singapore, and Delft has uncovered additional second laws of thermodynamics which complement the ordinary second law of thermodynamics, one of the most fundamental laws ...
Quantum Physics
Feb 9, 2015
9
2236
Objects with sizes in the nanometer range, such as the molecular building blocks of living cells or nanotechnological devices, are continuously exposed to random collisions with surrounding molecules. In such fluctuating ...
Nanophysics
Mar 31, 2014
12
1
Over 150 years after the famous Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell first introduced the idea, the concept of Maxwell's demon continues to perplex physicists and information scientists. The demon he dreamed up in a thought ...