Related papers: Basic thermodynamics to save lives

Concepts of everyday use like energy, heat, and temperature have acquired a precise meaning after the development of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics provides the basis for understanding how heat and work are related and with the general…

The basic idea of a microscopic understanding of Thermodynamics is to derive its main features from a microscopic probability distribution. In such a vein, we investigate the thermal statistics of quasi-probabilities's semi-classical…

In this study, the minimum amount of work needed to drive a thermodynamic system from one initial distribution to another in a given time duration is discussed. Equivalently, for given amount of work, the minimum time duration required to…

Fundamental concepts of thermodynamics rely on abstract physical quantities such as energy, heat and entropy, which play an important role in the process of interpreting thermal phenomena and statistical mechanics. However, these quantities…

There is a long tradition of thinking of thermodynamics, not as a theory of fundamental physics (or even a candidate theory of fundamental physics), but as a theory of how manipulations of a physical system may be used to obtain desired…

Thermodynamics (in concert with its sister discipline, statistical physics) can be regarded as a data reduction scheme based on partitioning a total system into a subsystem and a bath that weakly interact with each other. The ubiquity and…

The study of thermal heat engines was pivotal to establishing the principles of equilibrium thermodynamics, with implications far wider than only engine optimization. For nonequilibrium systems, which by definition dissipate energy even at…

The University of Maryland (UMD) Biology Education and Physics Education Research Groups are investigating students' views on the role of physics in introductory biology courses. This paper presents data from an introductory course that…

We argue that thermal machines can be understood from the perspective of `virtual qubits' at `virtual temperatures': The relevant way to view the two heat baths which drive a thermal machine is as a composite system. Virtual qubits are…

In this paper, the foundations of classical phenomenological thermodynamics are being thoroughly revisited. A new rigorous basis for thermodynamics is laid out in the main text and presented in full detail in the appendix. All relevant…

Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much…

A classroom activity for high school physics students is presented to explore the distinction between correlation and causation. Using data linking ice cream sales to drowning deaths, presented within a fictional news article, students…

Research in spintronics often involves generation of heat in nanoscale magnetic systems. This heat generation can be intentional, as when studying effects created by an external applied temperature difference, or unintentional, coming as a…

The inexorable miniaturisation of technologies, the relentless drive to improve efficiency and the enticing prospect of boosting performance through quantum effects are all compelling reasons to investigate microscopic machines. Thermal…

We develop the laws of thermodynamics in terms of general exponential families. By casting learning (log-loss minimization) problems in max-entropy and statistical mechanics terms, we translate thermodynamics results to learning scenarios.…

Quantum thermodynamics is an emerging research field aiming to extend standard thermodynamics and non-equilibrium statistical physics to ensembles of sizes well below the thermodynamic limit, in non-equilibrium situations, and with the full…

It is a common view in philosophy of physics that thermodynamics is a non-fundamental theory. This is motivated in particular by the fact that thermodynamics is considered to be a paradigmatic example for a theory that can be reduced to…

The biological cell exhibits a fantastic range of behaviors, but ultimately these are governed by a handful of physical and chemical principles. Here we explore simple theory, known for decades and based on the simple thermodynamics of…

This article describes an exemplary robot exercise which was conducted in a class for mechatronics students. The goal of this exercise was to engage students in scientific thinking and reasoning, activities which do not always play an…

Thermodynamic transport phenomena in the system consisting of many hard-disks confined in a circular tube with a temperature difference are discussed. Here, temperatures on parts of the walls of the tube are imposed by stochastic boundary…