thermodynamics

The standard physical chemistry and thermodynamics literature states that water expands upon freezing due to the crystalline structure of ice (hexagonal ice I_h), which occupies approximately 9% more volume than liquid water at the same mass. This expansion is treated as an intrinsic property of... Read more

The standard physical chemistry and thermodynamics literature states that water expands upon freezing due to the crystalline structure of ice (hexagonal ice I_h), which occupies approximately 9% more volume than liquid water at the same mass. This expansion is treated as an intrinsic property of... Read more

The standard physical chemistry and thermodynamics literature states that water expands upon freezing due to the crystalline structure of ice (hexagonal ice I_h), which occupies approximately 9% more ...

From dissipative structures to the adaptive frontier of the brain

Defying the laws of thermodynamics, experiments are beginning to show that a quantum state that is frozen forever might not be impossible. If we can tame it, it could unlock whole new types of matter

Starting from this QAs I'm in trouble with the application of Clausius's inequality to a system undergoing an irreversible transformation. As explained in the book "Fundamental of Engineering ...

Defying the laws of thermodynamics, experiments are beginning to show that a quantum state that is frozen forever might not be impossible. If we can tame it, it could unlock whole new types of matter

DR.SEIKH JAHANGIR ALAM MBBS(CAL)PG.DIP.CARD(LONDON)FRCP(GLASG)FACP(USA)FCCP(USA) CONSULTANT PHYSICIAN(PRIVATE PRACTICE) VILLAGE-SANTIPUR, POST-MECHEDA, DIST- PURBA MEDINIPUR, STATE- WEST BANGAL COUNTRY- INDIA, PIN – 721137

Quantum 10, 2136 (2026). https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-06-15-2136 We introduce a non-equilibrium version of the Caldeira-Leggett model in which a quantum particle is strongly coupled to a set of engineered reservoirs. The reservoirs are composed by collections of squeezed and displaced thermal modes, in contrast to the standard case in which the modes are assumed to be at equilibrium. The model…

Black holes are already strange enough, regions of space where gravity is so extreme that not even light can escape. But physicists have long known there's another layer of weirdness, that black holes also behave like thermodynamic objects, with temperature, entropy, and phase transitions just like a gas or a liquid. Now, a new approach borrowed from pure mathematics is revealing hidden patterns …

Nature Geoscience, Published online: 11 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41561-026-02019-9 Magmatism induced by a mantle plume bearing a relatively high proportion of dense fusible mantle material may have formed the Ontong Java Plateau, the largest extant oceanic plateau, according to thermodynamic modelling.

Nature Communications, Published online: 10 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74265-9 High-performance chip-scale microcombs are vital for precision measurement and coherent communications, yet traditional self-injection locking is limited by thermo-refractive noise that creates a trade-off between repetition rate and linewidth. Here, authors propose a cascaded structure to separate comb generati…

Nature, Published online: 09 June 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01817-w Theories about how ice crystals grow in cooling liquids are wildly inaccurate when compared with experimental data, but studies are starting to illuminate the earliest moments in freezing.

Chapter 40 of the Dao De Jing is one of the most condensed cosmological statements in the history of human thought: 'Reversal is the movement of the Dao; yielding is its application. All things under heaven are born from being; being is born from non-being.' Drawing on the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology (LYGC) framework and integrating modern thermodynamics, complexity science, cybernetics, and quant…

It's been almost a decade since I last wrote about this topic , and a preprint on the arXiv this week is a good jumping off point for more discussion. Thermometers are devices that allow us to take some physical observable and infer temperature.  I wrote about the nature of temperature 17 years ago (!!!) in a way that did not completely satisfy me or most of my readers, so maybe I should take ano…

A student’s routine lab shake produced a liquid that kept rebuilding a strange ancient shape, forcing scientists to rethink a basic rule.

To help with the idea, imagine a box sits in lab in frame S. At some moment, it somehow spontaneously creates 10 J of energy from nothing, without any push, so its momentum doesn't change: ΔE = 10 J, Δp = 0. Observer S' moves past at v = 0.6c (so γ = 1.25). Does this energy-creation event look... Read more