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 ...

The universe is getting more disordered, entropy is growing -- this is the second law of thermodynamics. But according to quantum theory, entropy should actually stay the same. Scientists took a ...

Entropy production lies at the heart of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, a field that examines systems away from equilibrium where continuous energy flows and irreversible processes dominate. In such ...

Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world ...

Recently, a team of researchers made headlines for a stunning announcement: a theoretical breakthrough that expanded our understanding of the first law of thermodynamics. But to understand that result ...

For more than a century, thermodynamics has described how heat flows and engines run, while quantum mechanics has ruled the strange behavior of atoms and photons. Physicists have long suspected that ...

One of the enormous conceptual ideas that came along with Einstein's theory of relativity was the surprise that time itself, long considered fundamental and universal, is actually relative. Different ...

Pity the poor thermodynamics student of the future. As difficult as thermo can be for budding engineers to learn, it is going to get a lot more complicated if a recently published theory is true.

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: ...