Up Next
Back to Show
PBS Space Time
Reversing Entropy with Maxwell's Demon
Season 4
Episode 33
The second law of thermodynamics – the law that entropy must, on average, increase – has been interpreted as the inevitability of the decay of structure. This is … misleading. Structure can develop in one region even as the entropy of the universe rises. Ultimately, entropy is a measure of the availability of free energy – of energy that isn’t hopelessly mixed in thermal equilibrium.
Support Provided By
16:08
Here’s the story we like to tell about the beginning of the universe.
17:44
We’ve never seen a TDE in the Milky Way, but we’ve seen them in distant galaxies.
16:51
Let’s talk about quantum gravity experiments that can be done here on Earth!
19:25
What if gravity isn’t weirdly quantum at all, but rather … just a bit messy?
17:02
Have we reached the end of the line of discoverable elements?
18:26
Learn about Nobel laureate Roger Penrose's idea of how consciousness is caused by quantum processes.
16:28
Faster than light travel may produce gravitational waves that we could see here on Earth.
20:07
All particles belong to two large groups: fermions and bosons.
16:11
Just how much stronger is this year’s solar activity going to get?
17:25
So you’ve decided to jump into a black hole...