Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Second law broken

Nature (2002)Cite this article

Small-scale energy fluctuations could limit minaturization.

Researchers have shown for the first time that, on the level of thousands of atoms and molecules, fleeting energy increases violate the second law of thermodynamics1. This is the tenet that some energy will always be lost when converting from one type to another.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Wang, G. M., Sevick, E. M., Mittag, E., Searles, D.J. & Evans, D.J. Experimental Demonstration of Violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Small Systems and Short Time Scales. Physical Review Letters 89, 050601, (2002).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Evans, D. J., Cohen, E. G. D., & Morriss, G. P. Probability of Second Law Violations in Shearing Steady States. Physical Review Letters 71, 2401 - 2404 (1993).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Ed Gerstner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Related links

Related links

Related external links

The first and second law

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gerstner, E. Second law broken. Nature (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/news020722-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/news020722-2

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing