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posted by martyb on Friday March 24 2017, @05:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-even-quit-the-game dept.

In 1912, chemist Walther Nernst proposed that cooling an object to absolute zero is impossible with a finite amount of time and resources. Today this idea, called the unattainability principle, is the most widely accepted version of the third law of thermodynamics—yet so far it has not been proved from first principles.

Now for the first time, physicists Lluís Masanes and Jonathan Oppenheim at the University College of London have derived the third law of thermodynamics from first principles. After more than 100 years, the result finally puts the third law on the same footing as the first and second laws of thermodynamics, both of which have already been proved.

To prove the third law, the physicists used ideas from computer science and quantum information theory. There, a common problem is to determine the amount of resources required to perform a certain task. When applied to cooling, the question becomes how much work must be done and how large must the cooling reservoir be in order to cool an object to absolute zero (0 Kelvin, -273.15°C, or -459.67°F)?

The physicists showed that cooling a system to absolute zero requires either an infinite amount of work or an infinite reservoir. This finding is in agreement with the widely accepted physical explanation of the unattainability of absolute zero: As the temperature approaches zero, the system's entropy (disorder) approaches zero, and it is not possible to prepare a system in a state of zero entropy in a finite number of steps.

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-physicists-impossible-cool-absolute.html

[Abstract]: A general derivation and quantification of the third law of thermodynamics


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @05:47AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @05:47AM (#483528)

    you can cool to absolute zero. the secret is using a time machine.
    also there seem to be some time violations when fissioning uranium so there
    might be a way to use it to attain absolute zero tho the universe as a whole will not recognize it as so but humans will consider it as reached even tho only on paper and in a lab ...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @06:00AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @06:00AM (#483533)

    stopid tor time-out, sigh.
    outline:

    using uranium to get to absolute zero works like this:
    cool to maximum the uranium atom.
    the energy movment is near zero tho there is energy as mass to the einstein equation.
    no split uranium into two atoms A and B ... and radiation AND NEUTRINOS.
    we cannot interact or thus cool neutrinos but they carry AWAY energy about 3%?
    the particles A and B howevervwe can cool.
    thus if we cool the Aand B particles very quickly after fissioning of uranium we can let the
    neutrino escape (what else can we do?) and carry away 3%? of the energy which should
    leave a system with A and B particke and missing 3% ....?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @01:08PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @01:08PM (#483616)

      Sounds like an atomic version of Zeno's paradox.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @04:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @04:33PM (#483734)

        errr .. no exactly not.
        the more the difference between the hot and the cold the more efficient is the cooling, as in more bangs for bucks.
        if the hot side and the cold side are very very near and as stated, the cold state has a "absolute" minimum, you cannot
        extract or remove anymore energy (or heat) .. that is zeno (or you would maybe need the whole universe minus one atom to cool just that one atom).

        however if you can coax the ONE particle to be cooled to absolute minimum to release energy in an "undetectable" form as, say a "neutrino"
        then the system to be cooled has lost energy.

        so assuming we do the zeno thingy and we get to very close to absolute zero kelvins (not that mars parasite thingy that has no idea about chlorophyl), say with a cooling device as big as the moon, so very very cold BUT NOT absolute ZERO, but then the particle emits a neutrino by decaying into TWO particles which the moon device will cool very easily : ) then the energy difference between the super cold moon-cooled ONE atom and absolute zero and the energy supposedly carried away by the neutrino emitted MIGHT just nudge you into the realm of NEGATIVE KELVIN! (*)

        with regular cooling (and stable atoms), again, you cannot reach absolute zero, like that zeno turtle and archilles race fable ...

        (*) of course there might be a theory in the making for the fictional (my interpretation) "neutrino" that says that if a certain threshold of "coldness" is reached that a atom will never ever decay, even if it's a regular radioactive one *puh, neutrino saved the day again: absolute zero holds*

        atoms sweating neutrinos to stay cool, that will be the day : )

        btw, as with that wave-particle duality, the negative kelvins "could" be interpreted as traveling in time, because entropy is reversed or frozen?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @12:56PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @12:56PM (#483613)

    "the universe as a whole will not recognize it as so but humans will consider it as reached"

    Sure, that sounds like a sane and meaningful thing to say.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @10:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @10:07PM (#483889)

      just to put the thread into perspective: your post was before "alien from mars that didnt encounter salat containing chlorophyl" so ... the movie is called "life". dont watch it. it sucks BALLS!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @01:09PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @01:09PM (#483617)

    There is a much simpler way to achieve the same, without the need for time travel: just let parliament or congress redefine what "Absolute Zero" means, and you don't even need a "lab" to reach it "only on paper" in your own kitchen/basement/mancave/asshole/wherever.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @04:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @04:45PM (#483741)

      there's also a famous story about "hand-me-down paper" -VS- "believe your own eyes (and mind)" with the actors name being Galileo or Copernicus?