tldrdailynews.com logo
Tag

Thermodynamics

All articles tagged with #thermodynamics

Moon's Permanently Shaded Pits Offer Stable 17°C Haven, Hinting at Underground Habitats
space12 days ago

Moon's Permanently Shaded Pits Offer Stable 17°C Haven, Hinting at Underground Habitats

A UCLA-led study using NASA's LRO Diviner data shows that permanently shadowed sections of certain lunar pits can maintain a near-constant ~17°C, while the surrounding surface ranges from 127°C in daylight to −173°C in darkness. This stability arises from pit geometry and radiative exchange, suggesting caves could offer a natural thermal buffer for future habitats. However, this is a modeling result, not a confirmed underground base, and practical settlement would require robotic scouting, reliable access, power, life support, and radiation protection.

via Space Daily|
#lro-diviner#lunar-pits#moon
Earth's Inner Core May Be Dominated by Superionic Hydrogen
science26 days ago

Earth's Inner Core May Be Dominated by Superionic Hydrogen

New modeling suggests the inner core could host abundant superionic hydrogen—hydrogen that flows like a liquid and conducts electricity—with the hexagonal close-packed (HCP) phase likely more stable than body-centered cubic (BCC) under core conditions. Partitioning of hydrogen is driven mainly by temperature rather than pressure, creating a radial gradient that concentrates hydrogen toward the inner-core boundary where it re-partitions into a liquid that enriches the outer core. This ongoing exchange, plus inner-core growth, could provide chemical buoyancy to power the geodynamo, while other light elements like oxygen and carbon likely further shape the core's composition and evolution.

via Yahoo|
#earths-core#hydrogen#inner-core
Gravity Emerges from Entropy: A Thermodynamic View of the Cosmos
science1 month ago

Gravity Emerges from Entropy: A Thermodynamic View of the Cosmos

Physicist Ginestra Bianconi proposes Gravity from Entropy (GfE), a quantum gravity framework in which gravity arises from an information-theoretic tension between two spacetime metrics. They find total entropy increases with cosmic expansion while entropy per unit volume falls, allowing local structure to form even as the universe trends toward disorder. GfE reduces to General Relativity at low energies but includes a dynamical dark-energy term that could yield observable effects, offering a potential bridge between gravity, thermodynamics, and quantum theory.

via SciTechDaily|
#cosmology#entropy#gravity
Dynamic Horizons Extend Black Hole Thermodynamics
science1 month ago

Dynamic Horizons Extend Black Hole Thermodynamics

Penn State researchers propose using dynamical horizons instead of event horizons to define black hole entropy in real time, extending the first and second laws of black hole thermodynamics to non-equilibrium processes such as formation, merging, and evaporation, thus addressing teleological issues and offering a practical framework for evolving black holes and gravitational-wave observations.

via SciTechDaily|
#black-holes#dynamical-horizons#gravitational-waves
Dynamic horizons rewrite black hole thermodynamics
space1 month ago

Dynamic horizons rewrite black hole thermodynamics

A Penn State team led by Abhay Ashtekar proposes replacing Hawking's equilibrium-based event horizon with a 'dynamical horizon' and generalizing black hole thermodynamics to non-equilibrium situations, allowing the first and second laws to apply during growth, mergers, and evaporation. This framework complements Hawking radiation by focusing on entropy changes in dynamical processes, improving our understanding of evolving black holes; the work is published in Physical Review Letters.

via Space|
#black-holes#dynamical-horizon#entropy
Quantum Control Reverses the Arrow of Time in the Lab
science2 months ago

Quantum Control Reverses the Arrow of Time in the Lab

Researchers developed measurement-based quantum control that, by combining measurements, feedback, and tailored control fields, can stretch or reverse the apparent arrow of time in quantum systems, creating time-reversed trajectories and a measurement-powered engine that can extract energy from monitoring; the work, published in Physical Review X, points to new methods for quantum state preparation and energy management with platforms like superconducting qubits.

via SciTechDaily|
#measurement#quantum#quantum-control
Topology Reveals Global Shape of Black Hole Thermodynamics
science2 months ago

Topology Reveals Global Shape of Black Hole Thermodynamics

Black holes are not just features of their accretion disks: they possess intrinsic temperature and entropy, and topology is used to classify their thermodynamic behavior. By identifying special zero points in the thermodynamic landscape and assigning them topological charges, physicists derive a global fingerprint that distinguishes different black-hole types (such as Schwarzschild vs. Reissner–Nordström) while remaining robust to changes in mass, charge, or spin; this approach links stability and state transitions to invariant properties and could illuminate paths toward quantum gravity, with implications for light rings and spacetime bending.

via Universe Today|
#astrophysics#black-holes#quantum-gravity
Neil deGrasse Tyson: After death, your energy returns to Earth or travels to the stars
science3 months ago

Neil deGrasse Tyson: After death, your energy returns to Earth or travels to the stars

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains on Startalk that after death your body's energy isn’t destroyed: burying you returns energy to the Earth via microbes, while cremation turns it into heat radiated into space, potentially reaching Alpha Centauri. He frames this in terms of the first law of thermodynamics and notes a debate between eco-friendly burial versus cremation.

via New York Post|
#burial#cremation#death
New Theory Reveals Why a Quantum Gas Keeps Its Cool Under Energy Kicks
physics-and-chemistry4 months ago

New Theory Reveals Why a Quantum Gas Keeps Its Cool Under Energy Kicks

Physicists have built a theoretical framework linking interparticle interaction strength to the momentum-kick amplitude in a strongly interacting one-dimensional quantum gas, showing a critical regime where external energy stops being absorbed due to dynamical localization. The model explains why the gas resists heating, suggests the mechanism may apply to other quantum systems, and sets the stage for future experimental tests to explore finite-size and thermodynamic-limit behavior.

via Gizmodo|
#dynamical-localization#energy-absorption#many-body-physics
Experts challenge deep-sea 'dark oxygen' claim, call for retracting 2024 study
planet-earth5 months ago

Experts challenge deep-sea 'dark oxygen' claim, call for retracting 2024 study

A 2024 study claimed that deep-sea polymetallic nodules could generate oxygen in total darkness via seawater electrolysis, but a December 2025 opinion article from marine scientists and electrochemists argues the results are flawed and likely artifacts, citing improper chamber ventilation, absence of negative controls, missing hydrogen data, and a thermodynamics violation; the authors defend their work and plan a spring CCZ expedition to test the phenomenon, but many experts say the study should be retracted unless the evidence is revised.

via Live Science|
#dark-oxygen#deep-sea#deep-sea-mining
Correlated quantum engines defy Carnot limits at the atomic scale
science7 months ago

Correlated quantum engines defy Carnot limits at the atomic scale

University of Stuttgart researchers demonstrate that at atomic scales, quantum correlations between particles allow correlated quantum engines to exceed the traditional Carnot efficiency limit, by harvesting work from correlations in addition to heat; this generalizes thermodynamics for tiny, strongly correlated systems and could enable ultra-efficient nanoscale motors and quantum devices.

via ScienceDaily|
#carnot-limit#nanoscale#quantum-correlations
Thermodynamics Reimagined: A New Framework for Non‑Equilibrium Energy
science7 months ago

Thermodynamics Reimagined: A New Framework for Non‑Equilibrium Energy

Researchers at West Virginia University have expanded the first law of thermodynamics to describe energy conversion in non‑equilibrium systems by incorporating additional quantitative descriptors beyond density and temperature, enabling a more complete account of energy flow in complex substances such as plasmas, chemistry, circuitry, and quantum systems; the breakthrough could reshape how scientists model energetic processes across multiple fields.

via Yahoo|
#energy#non-equilibrium#physics