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View Full Version : Nanoclusters seem to skirt physics law



anon
18.04.09, 19:18
Nobody's above the law. But tiny clusters of colliding atoms may duck below the second law of thermodynamics. In simulations, researchers in Japan found that in rare cases, tiny clusters of atoms ricochet off each other faster than their approaching speeds. The results, which appeared in the March Physical Review E, seem to violate the second law's requirement that any work squanders a little bit of energy in the form of waste heat, leaving the system a little more disheveled, with higher entropy.

In collisions big enough to see, like those between a tennis ball and a gym floor, the speed of an object's approach is always faster than its speed after impact. A tennis ball dropped against the floor bounces a little slower and comes up shorter on each bounce because a small amount of the ball's energy is siphoned off in the form of waste heat.

In the nanoworld, though, the new results suggest that normal rules do not always apply.

Science News / Nanoclusters Seem To Skirt Physics Law (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/42877/title/Nanoclusters_seem_to_skirt_physics_law)