Related papers: Why Do We Believe in the Second Law?

The mathematical properties associated with the widely accepted concept of the extensivity of many of the common thermodynamic variables are examined and some of their consequences considered. The possible conflict between some of these and…

If the second law of thermodynamics forbids a transition from one state to another, then it is still possible to make the transition happen by using a sufficient amount of work. But if we do not have access to this amount of work, can the…

In the absence of empirical confirmation, scientists may judge a theory's chances of being viable based on a wide range of arguments. The paper argues that such arguments can differ substantially with regard to their structural similarly to…

We show that the Cerf-Adami inequalities do not necessarily depend on conditional entropies nor any reference to Markov chains. While the latter are not explicit in the original form, they are often implied in certain derivations. We also…

We show that the conservation and the non-additivity of the information, together with the additivity of the entropy make the entropy increase in an isolated system. The collapse of the entangled quantum state offers an example of the…

It is shown that one of consequences of basic principle of quantum mechanics at the mesoscopic level is violation of the second law of thermodynamics and that an experimental evidence of this violation was obtained long ago.

It is argued the the idea of a single temperature-like variable, introduced in [1], which enters a generalized second law for Markovian open system in non-equilibrium environment is not sufficient for a consistent and useful thermodynamic…

We investigate the laws of thermodynamics in an accelerating universe driven by dark energy with a time-dependent equation of state. In the case we consider that the physically relevant part of the Universe is that envelopped by the…

The reversibility and recurrence paradoxes are key issues that have been left unsolved in researches on the foundation of thermodynamics since the 19th century. This article shows that (1) the reversibility paradox can be overcome if we pay…

The laws of thermodynamics, despite their wide range of applicability, are known to break down when systems are correlated with their environments. Here, we generalize thermodynamics to physical scenarios which allow presence of…

It is shown that the laws of thermodynamics are extremely robust under generalizations of the form of entropy. Using the Bregman-type relative entropy, the Clausius inequality is proved to be always valid. This implies that thermodynamics…

Caratheodory's axiomatic formulation of the second law is considered as one of the standard forms of formulation of the law. However, it was mired in advanced mathematics. The formulation was strongly criticized by Max Planck, for it was…

The second law of thermodynamics - the usual statement of the arrow of time - has been called the most fundamental law of physics. It is thus difficult to conceive that a single dynamical system could contain subsystems, in significant…

In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…

This paper is the second part of a previous paper (Marquet, 2019) dealing with the need to define the entropy with an absolute way, by using the third law of thermodynamics. In this second part it is shown that there is a need and interest…

It exists a large class of systems for which the traditional notion of extensivity breaks down. From experimental examples we induce two general hypothesis concerning such systems. In the first the existence of an internal coordinate system…

Quantum thermodynamics addresses the emergence of thermodynamical laws from quantum mechanics. The link is based on the intimate connection of quantum thermodynamics with the theory of open quantum systems. Quantum mechanics inserts…

Although information theory resolves inconsistencies (known under the form of famous enigmas) of the traditional approach of thermostatistics, its place in the corresponding literature is not what it deserves. This article supports the idea…

Completely positive trace preserving maps are essential for the formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. The dynamics of quantum systems, correlated with their environments, are in general not described by such maps. We explore how…

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system is almost always increasing. We propose combinatorial formalizations of the second law and explore their conditions of possibilities.