Almost exactly 200 years ago, French physicist Sadi Carnot determined the maximum efficiency of heat engines. The Carnot ...

Thermodynamics and statistical physics provide a unified framework linking the macroscopic laws of energy, work, and entropy to the microscopic motions of particles. Thermodynamics, rooted in the laws ...

For more than a century, thermodynamics has described how heat flows and engines run, while quantum mechanics has ruled the ...

Learn all about thermodynamics, the science that explores the relationship between heat and energy in other forms. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

It is one of the most important laws of nature that we know: The famous second law of thermodynamics says that the world gets more and more disordered when random chance is at play. Or, to put it more ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If there’s one law of physics that seems easy to grasp, it’s the second law of thermodynamics: Heat flows spontaneously from hotter ...

Thermodynamics is the science of energy transfer and its effects on the properties of matter. It primarily deals with concepts such as temperature, heat, work, internal energy, and the laws governing ...

Two physicists at the University of Stuttgart have proven that the Carnot principle, a central law of thermodynamics, does not apply to objects on the atomic scale whose physical properties are linked ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about physics, science, academia, and pop culture. We're nearing the end of a months-long home improvement project that ...