The World's Smallest Engine Runs on a Single Atom

by srikar • 12 years ago

3 2 12 years ago

bharatFNS• 12 years ago

This things proposes to be a new rage in green revolution.

gus_massa• 12 years ago

Probabbly not:

However, any claims that an engine can break the laws of thermodynamics deserves extra scrutiny and skepticism. According to Taylor, this ultrahigh efficiency is only a matter of perspective. "There's no free lunch here," he says.

(I should read all the reference papers before commenting in the Internet, but let comment anyway.)

An important point is that not only the energy must be conserved by the engine, the total entropy must increase. The claim this is more efficient that a Carnot cycle is equivalent to a decrease of the total entropy.

They have a squeezing step, where “no energy” is transferred. But in spite of no energy transfer, there can be some entropy transfer. This is probably where they are hiding the difference in entropy, that is “lost” in this machine, but it’s really going to part equipment.

The World's Smallest Engine Runs on a Single Atom

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