Statistical mechanics provides the framework for deriving macroscopic thermodynamic properties from the microscopic characteristics of matter. Central to this discipline is the concept of entropy, ...

Thermodynamic spontaneity—whether a reaction can go—can be measured by changes in either of two parameters: entropy or free energy.

Olalla’s recent work argues that the disappearance of specific heat at absolute zero—long treated as part of the third law of thermodynamics—can instead be derived directly from the second law, ...

The universe is getting more disordered, entropy is growing -- this is the second law of thermodynamics. But according to quantum theory, entropy should actually stay the same. Scientists took a ...

Olalla, from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Seville, has described the direct link between the vanishing of specific heats at absolute zero—a general experimental ...

This paper follows another in which Professor Martín-Olalla corrected an original idea by Einstein that gave rise to the third law of thermodynamics ...