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Beyond the Second Law of Thermodynamics | Quanta Magazine

Thanks to the power of fluctuation relations, physicists are taking the second law of thermodynamics to settings once thought impossible.

Click to view the original at quantamagazine.org

Hasnain says:

“This is the core of fluctuation relations: Properties of a system far from equilibrium participate in an equality with equilibrium properties. My colleague Chris Jarzynski at the University of Maryland discovered this in 1997. (He’s so modest, he calls the equality the nonequilibrium fluctuation relation, while the rest of us call it Jarzynski’s equality.) Although the DNA experiment provided one of the most famous tests of this principle, the equation governs loads of systems, including those involving electrons, beads the size of bacteria and brass oscillators that resemble centimeter-long tire swings.”

Posted on 2022-04-04T13:10:57+0000