From a laptop warming a knee to a supercomputer heating a room, the fact that computers generate heat is familiar to everyone. But theoretical physicists have discovered something astonishing: not ...

Science popularization has its legends and heroes, just like any other field, though I’ve heard no plans as yet to open a Hall of Fame. Should that day come, one of the first inductees would ...

A challenge in materials design is that in both natural and manmade materials, volume sometimes decreases, or increases, with increasing temperature. While there are mechanical explanations for this ...

For a technical scientific term, entropy is pretty popular. I mean, it was the title of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after all. Search the Internet for “entropy” quotes and you’ll find them ...

Three recent studies offer deeper understanding of thermodynamic behaviors with potential to impact materials engineering and energy systems. One shows how increasing elemental diversity in layered ...

The universe, in all its vastness, is governed by physical laws that dictate the ebb and flow of matter and energy. A cornerstone among these laws is the second law of thermodynamics, which suggests a ...

A multi-university research collaboration including Drexel University, Purdue University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Pennsylvania, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Institute of ...