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It is often stated that the second law of thermodynamics follows from the condition that at some given time in the past the entropy was lower than it is now. Formally, this condition is the statement that $E[S(t)|S(t_0)]$, the expected…
Entropy is a very useful concept from physics that tries to explain how a system behaves from a point of view of the thermodynamics. However, there are two ways to explain entropy, and it depends on if we are studying a microsystem or a…
Relating thermodynamic and kinetic properties is a conceptual challenge with many practical benefits. Here, based on first principles, we derive a rigorous inequality relating the entropy and the dynamic propagator of particle…
First, Second and Combined Laws of Thermodynamics are revised in terms of entropy change, partial entropy, partial volume, and chemical potential.
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…
We investigate the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics, applying Barrow entropy for the horizon entropy. The former arises from the fact that the black-hole surface may be deformed due to quantum-gravitational effects,…
It is argued that a typical many body energy eigenstate has a well defined thermodynamic entropy and that individual eigenstates possess thermodynamic characteristics analogous to those of generic isolated systems. We examine large systems…
We derive the classical null energy condition, understood as a constraint on the Ricci tensor, from the second law of thermodynamics applied locally to Bekenstein-Hawking entropy associated with patches of null congruences. The derivation…
Skeptics of biological evolution often claim that evolution requires a decrease in entropy, giving rise to a conflict with the second law of thermodynamics. This argument is fallacious because it neglects the large increase in entropy…
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy production in macroscopic systems is non-negative, reaching zero only at thermodynamic equilibrium. As a corollary, this implies that the state trajectory of macroscopic systems is…
An interesting question to explore in physics classes is whether gravity violates the second law of thermodynamics. Standard physics textbooks provide little to no discussion of the relationship between entropy and gravity, and the same is…
In recent years we have witnessed a concentrated effort to make sense of thermodynamics for small-scale systems. One of the main difficulties is to capture a suitable notion of work that models realistically the purpose of quantum machines,…
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…
Extremal principles are fundamental in our interpretation of phenomena in nature. One of the best known examples is the second law of thermodynamics, governing most physical and chemical systems and stating the continuous increase of…
We review on a recently proposed quantum exception to the second law of thermodynamics. We emphasize that $^4$He superflows, like any other forms of flows, shall carry entropy or heat in a thermal environment. Following that, one can use a…
The physical impossibility of heat transfer under isothermal conditions implies that the classical expression for the entropy of the ideal gas may not be compatible with the internal energy of the gas itself. A corrected expression of the…
Equilibrium thermodynamics is combined with Jarzynski's irreversible work theorem to quantify the excess entropy produced by irreversible processes. The resulting rectified form of the second law parallels the first law, in the sense that…
In black hole thermodynamics of certain models, the thermodynamic first law may contain the pressure term. The corresponding entropy follows the area law whereas the thermodynamic energy is not the same with the black hole mass. If the…
We present some novel thermodynamic ideas based on the Maupertuis principle. By considering Hamiltonians written in terms of appropriate action-angle variables we show that thermal states can be characterized by the action variables and by…
The relationships between reversible Carnot cycles, the absence of perpetual motion machines and the existence of a non-decreasing, globally unique entropy function forms the starting point of many textbook presentations of the foundations…