Related papers: Why Do We Believe in the Second Law?
This article describes the third law of thermodynamics. This law is often poorly known and is often decried, or even considered optional and irrelevant to describe weather and climate phenomena. This, however, is inaccurate and contrary to…
I argue here that both the first and second laws of thermodynamics, generally understood to be quintessentially physical in nature, can be equally well described as being about certain types of information without the need to invoke…
This article is a short version of a longer article to appear in Physics Reports (cond-mat/9708200). The essential postulates of classical thermodynamics are formulated, from which the second law is deduced as the principle of increase of…
Some works have appeared in recent accredited literature considering the possibility of macroscopic violations of the second law in simulated as well as really executed experiments. We argue the inexistence of such violations in experiments…
The second law and the generalized second law of thermodynamics in cosmology in the framework of the modified Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity are investigated. The conditions upon which these laws hold are derived and discussed.
The second law of thermodynamics constitutes a fundamental principle of physics, precluding the existence of perpetual motion machines and providing a natural definition of the arrow of time. Its scope extends across virtually all areas of…
We present an analysis of the foundations of the well known Clausius inequality. It is shown that, in general, the inequality is not a logical consequence of the Kelvin-Planck formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. Some thought…
It is a common belief that in any environment where life is possible, life will be generated. Here it is suggested that the cause for a spontaneous generation of complex systems is probability driven processes. Based on equilibrium…
A version of the second law of thermodynamics states that one cannot lower the energy of an isolated system by a cyclic operation. We prove this law without introducing statistical ensembles and by resorting only to quantum mechanics. We…
Many fruitful analogies have emerged between the theories of quantum entanglement and thermodynamics, motivating the pursuit of an axiomatic description of entanglement akin to the laws of thermodynamics. A long-standing open problem has…
A classical and quantum mechanical generalized second law of thermodynamics in cosmology implies constraints on the effective equation of state of the universe in the form of energy conditions, obeyed by many known cosmological solutions,…
Statistical mechanics descriptions of the second law of thermodynamics generally imply point-like particles driven by a dissipative overall mechanism for their simultaneous time-evolution. As the number of involved particles grows larger,…
We have considered the flat FRW model of the universe which is filled with only dark energy. The general descriptions of first and second laws of thermodynamics are investigated on the apparent horizon and event horizon of the universe. We…
The second law of thermodynamics, which deals with irreversibility and makes the theory so special, is usually considered empirical. The definition of equilibrium as an attractor, on the other hand, requires a postulate. This article shows…
We investigate the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics, in the cosmological scenario where dark energy interacts with both dark matter and radiation. Calculating separately the entropy variation for each fluid component…
Quantum thermodynamics investigates how robust the second law of thermodynamics serves as the unique fundamental law in the small quantum world. To tackle this problem, the quantum coherence constitutes a major difficulty of investigations,…
We consider the entropy production of a strongly coupled bipartite system. The total entropy production can be partitioned into various components, which we use to define local versions of the Second Law that are valid without the usual…
Despite its enormous empirical success, the formalism of quantum theory still raises fundamental questions: why is nature described in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, and what modifications of it could we reasonably expect to find in some…
We investigate the reasons of having confidence in mathematical theorems. The formalist point of view maintains that formal derivations underlying proofs, although usually not carried out in practice, contribute to this confidence. Opposing…
The second law of classical thermodynamics, based on the positivity of the entropy production, only holds for deterministic processes. Therefore the Second Law in stochastic quantum thermodynamics may not hold. By making a fundamental…