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"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." The Laws of Thermodynamics explain interactions among components in a system, including emulsification of ...

Image of argon plasma glowing a bluish color in an experiment at the WVU Center for KINETIC Plasma Physics. (Credit: WVU Photo/Brian Persinger) The four laws of thermodynamics are an established ...

Have you ever heard of a Perpetual Motion Machine? More to the point, have you ever heard of why Perpetual Motion Machines are impossible? One of the reasons is because of the first law of ...

A routine lab experiment by a college student has turned into one of the strangest physics stories of the year, hinting that a simple mixture of oil, water, and metal particles might behave in ways ...

In a new publication, Professor José-María Martín-Olalla, from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Seville, has described the direct link between the vanishing of specific ...

For the student bored by physics, a professor suddenly theorizing about the ups and downs of romance might have the potential to turn around a stuffy lecture. But the opposite doesn’t hold the same ...

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Imagine a box filled with a variety of atoms and molecules in proportions roughly equivalent to the composition of the prebiotic soup in which life thrives.

The dominant view in physics is simple: the laws of nature are fixed. Gravity pulls as it always has; quantum probabilities collapse with the same stubborn indifference today as billions of years ago.

Researchers have made a breakthrough in applying the first law of thermodynamics to complex systems. The law is a bedrock of physics, but has long failed to describe systems that are out of ...