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 ...

A long-standing law of thermodynamics turns out to have a loophole at the smallest scales. Researchers have shown that quantum engines made of correlated particles can exceed the traditional ...

What do we do now?

Landauer's principle is a thermodynamics concept also relevant in information theory, which states that erasing one bit of information from an information system results in the dissipation of at least ...

Joint research led by Sosuke Ito of the University of Tokyo has shown that nonequilibrium thermodynamics, a branch of physics that deals with constantly changing systems, explains why optimal ...

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 ...

Two physicists at the University of Stuttgart have demonstrated that the Carnot principle, a foundational rule of thermodynamics, does not fully apply ...

Time feels like the most basic feature of reality. Seconds tick, days pass and everything from planetary motion to human memory seems to unfold along ...