thermodynamics

Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself.

The thorny thought experiment has been turned into a real experiment — one that physicists use to probe the physics of information.

Unusual proteins that can quickly fold into different shapes provide cells with a novel regulatory mechanism.

Push or crush a new class of materials, and they’ll undergo record-breaking temperature changes.

A new look at a ubiquitous phenomenon has uncovered unexpected fractal behavior that could give us clues about the early universe and the arrow of time.

Researchers explore a loophole that extracts useful energy from a fluid’s seemingly random motion. The secret? Sugar and asymmetry.

A recent experiment shows how quantum mechanics can make heat flow from a cold body to a hot one, an apparent (though not real) violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing.

As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information.