Source: Strengthening the second law of thermodynamics According to the second law of thermodynamics, the total entropy of a closed process can increase or stay the same, but never decrease. The second law guarantees, for example, that an egg can wobble off a table and leave a mess on the floor but that such a mess will never spontaneously form an egg and leap back on the table. Or that air will escape a balloon but never, on its own accord, inflate it. Since at least the 19th century, physicists have been investigating the role of entropy in information theory—studying the energy transactions of adding or erasing bits from computers, for example. The thermodynamics of computation is a research focus of physicist and SFI resident faculty member David Wolpert, and for the last few years he's been collaborating with Artemy Kolchinsky, physicist and former SFI postdoctoral fellow, to better understand the connection between thermodynamics and information processing in computation. Their latest exploration of the topic, published in Physical Review E, looks at applying these ideas to a wide range of classical and quantum areas, including quantum thermodynamics. . . . I studied mechanical engineering in college before taking a four year break in the US Marine Corps. The Second Law of Thermal Dynamics has always been my favorite. Bob Wilson
