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

Clocks are essential building blocks of modern technology, from computers to GPS receivers. They are also essentially engines, irreversibly consuming resources in order to generate accurate ticks. But ...

As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information. In his 1824 book, Reflections on the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...