- What problem was Walther Nernst trying to solve when he proposed the heat theorem?
- What does the third law of thermodynamics say happens to entropy as a system approaches absolute zero?
- Why is absolute zero considered impossible to actually reach?
- How long did Nernst wait between proposing his heat theorem and winning the Nobel Prize for it?
Thermodynamics
The physics of heat, work, and energy transformation.
- What did classical physics' equipartition theorem predict about heat capacity, and how did experiments contradict it?
- Why does a solid's heat capacity fall toward zero as temperature approaches absolute zero, according to Einstein's model?
- What major scientific achievements defined Kelvin's fifty-year career at the University of Glasgow?
- What were the two 'clouds' Kelvin identified in his 1900 lecture as physics' remaining unsolved problems?
- What role did Kelvin play in laying the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable?
- What temperature did Kamerlingh Onnes reach when he successfully liquefied helium in 1908?
- What does Wien's displacement law say about the relationship between an object's temperature and the wavelength of light it glows brightest at?
- Why did Wien's distribution law fit the high-frequency end of the thermal radiation spectrum but fail at the low-frequency end?
- How did the gap in Wien's formula give Planck the opening to introduce the quantum hypothesis in 1900?
- How do modern pyrometers use Wien's law to infer a star's or a furnace's temperature from its color?
- Why did stimulated emission seem like an unachievable theoretical curiosity when Einstein first described it?
- What was the ultraviolet catastrophe that Planck was trying to fix?
- Why did Planck call his own quantum assumption a 'formal trick' and an 'act of desperation'?
- What observation about entropy changes near absolute zero led Nernst to his heat theorem?
- Why does the third law of thermodynamics say absolute zero can never be reached in a finite number of steps?
- Why did the Nobel committee wait fourteen years after Nernst's heat theorem to award the prize?
- What modern technologies rely on the third law of thermodynamics today?
- What problem with the radiation spectrum of a heated black body led Planck to propose that energy comes in discrete packets?
- Why did Planck initially regard his own quantum hypothesis as a mathematical trick rather than a physical truth?
- What does the third law of thermodynamics say about absolute zero?
- What do Onsager's reciprocal relations say about the matrix linking thermodynamic flows to their driving forces?
- Why did it take the Nobel committee 37 years to recognize the significance of Onsager's 1931 papers?
- What did Anfinsen's ribonuclease A experiments show about how a protein knows what shape to fold into?
- What is the thermodynamic hypothesis of protein folding, and why did it matter that a denatured protein could refold on its own?
- What is a dissipative structure, and how can a system organise itself while being driven far from equilibrium?
- Why doesn't the spontaneous formation of Bénard convection cells violate the second law of thermodynamics?
- What did the FIRAS instrument's blackbody spectrum measurement confirm about Big Bang cosmology?
- Why does cooling atoms to near absolute zero make quantum effects easier to observe?
- What did COBE's measurements of the cosmic microwave background confirm about the Big Bang?
- How might live fish exploit turbulence to reduce the energetic cost of swimming?
- How does treating plant tissue as a poromorphoelastic medium explain the coupling between water absorption and cell wall expansion during growth?
- What role do mechanical and physical fields play alongside chemical (hormonal) gradients in regulating plant morphogenesis?