entropy tagged posts

This is an illustration of ordered nanoparticle organization induced by the novel method (SCPINS). It is applicable to different pattern geometries and particle compositions. The background electric-circuit model pattern is shown as an example.
Credit: The University of Akron

Entropy instead of Chemistry can be used to control organization of nanoparticles into patterns in ultrathin polymer films according to a discovery by Dr. Alamgir Karim, UA’s Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Professor of Polymer Engineering, and his student Dr. Ren Zhang. Polymer thin films are used in a variety of technological applications, for example paints, lubricants, and adhesives...

In principle, nothing that enters a black hole can leave the black hole. This has considerably complicated the study of these mysterious bodies on which generations of physicists have debated ever since 1916, the year their existence was hypothesized as a direct consequence of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. There is, however, some consensus in the scientific community on the fact that black holes possess an entropy, because their existence would otherwise violate the second law of thermodynamics. In particular, Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking have suggested that the entropy – a measure of the inner disorder of a physical system – of a black hole is proportional to its area and not to its volume, as would be more intuitive...