Though a cornerstone of thermodynamics, entropy remains one of the most vexing concepts to teach budding physicists in the classroom. Physics teachers designed a hand-held model to demonstrate the ...

We experience the flow of time because it’s a natural outcome of the basic laws of physics. But we may need to build a whole ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2023 – Though a cornerstone of thermodynamics, entropy remains one of the most vexing concepts to teach budding physicists in the classroom. As a result, many people oversimplify ...

Entropy is one of the most useful concepts in science but also one of the most confusing. This article serves as a brief introduction to the various types of entropy that can be used to quantify the ...

Can quantum systems become more disordered, as thermodynamics would predict? Yes, they can - if a proper definition of "entropy" is used. It is one of the most important laws of nature that we know: ...

I have always felt connected to the thermodynamic principle of entropy. I believed that my body at rest demonstrated the concept perfectly—and I now know that to be true, but not at all in the way ...

In a recent paper, SFI Professor David Wolpert, SFI Fractal Faculty member Carlo Rovelli, and physicist Jordan Scharnhorst examine a longstanding, paradoxical thought experiment in statistical physics ...

The flow of time in one direction is so intuitive, so immutable, that we take it utterly for granted. Things don’t fall up; broken pieces don’t reassemble; humans get older, so it goes. Yet time ...

A new study identifies how water becomes ionized under electrochemical conditions. Hydrogen is expected to play a major role ...