The second law of thermodynamics says, in simple terms, entropy always increases. This principle explains, for example, why you can't unscramble an egg. When you purchase through links on our site, we ...

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.

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 ...

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

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 ...

Thermodynamic spontaneity—whether a reaction can go—can be measured by changes in either of two parameters: entropy or free energy. These concepts are abstract and can be somewhat difficult to ...

Behind the veil: A black hole's event horizon contains an infinite number of microstates, but expressing these microstates in terms of a finite set of representative quantum superpositions makes it ...