A new study published in Nature Communications has shown that in the asymptotic limit, extracting the maximum possible work ...

Thermodynamics is traditionally concerned with systems comprised of a large number of particles. Here we present a framework for extending thermodynamics to individual quantum systems, including ...

In seeming defiance of the second law of thermodynamics, nature is filled with examples of order emerging from chaos. A new theoretical framework resolves the apparent paradox Science has given ...

Nernst's theorem—a general experimental observation presented in 1905 that entropy exchanges tend to zero when the temperature tends to zero—has been directly linked to the second principle of ...

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 ...