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“Irreversibility, information and the second law of thermodynamics

at the nanoscale”

Date:

Download-files:

Time:

Thursday, 15. Sept 2016

Video-Recording for any system with MP4-support

- Video.mp4 (ca.271 Mb)

15:15 – 16:15

Speaker: Chris Jarzynski (Maryland)

Abstract :

What do the laws of thermodynamics look like, when applied to microscopic systems

such as optically trapped colloidal particles, single molecules manipulated with laser tweezers,

and biomolecular machines? In recent years it has become apparent that the fluctuations

of small systems far from thermal equilibrium satisfy strong and unexpected laws,

which allow us to rewrite familiar inequalities of macroscopic thermodynamics as equalities.

These results in turn have spurred a renewed interest in the feedback control of small systems

and the closely related Maxwell’s demon paradox. I will describe some of this progress,

and will argue that it has refined our understanding of irreversibility, the second law, and

the thermodynamic arrow of time.