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 ...

How it works When laser light passes through a cavity filled with atoms, part of it can do useful work. In this example the work is charging a quantum battery (top). The rest of the light turns into ...

One of the most fundamental rules of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, has for the first time been shown not to hold for microscopic systems. The demonstration, by chemical physicists in ...

An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical properties. Popular hypotheses credit a primordial ...