"In quantum physics, the entire system is described by a single large many-particle quantum state," says Prof. Joachim Burgdörfer (TU Wien). "How a random distribution and thus a temperature should ...

Physicists at West Virginia University have made a breakthrough on an age-old limitation of the first law of thermodynamics. West Virginia University physicists have made a breakthrough on an age-old ...

When French engineer Sadi Carnot calculated the maximum efficiency of a heat engine in 1824, he had no idea what heat was. In those days, physicists thought heat was a fluid called caloric. But Carnot ...

Recent studies have developed fundamental limitations on nanoscale thermodynamics, in terms of a set of independent free energy relations. Here we show that free energy relations cannot properly ...

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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 ...

A study published in Physical Review Letters (PRL) details a "Gambling Carnot Engine" that researchers report can attain 100% efficiency while also improving power generation. The researchers present ...

Physicists in the UK and Russia have revived concepts first put forth in the 1940s to develop a new theory of the heat capacity of liquids. Created by Dima Bolmatov and Kostya Trachenko of Queen Mary, ...

Image of argon plasma glowing a bluish color in an experiment at the WVU Center for KINETIC Plasma Physics. (Credit: WVU Photo/Brian Persinger) The four laws of thermodynamics are an established ...

Thermal operations are an operational model of non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics. In the absence of coherence between energy levels, exact state transition conditions under thermal operations are ...