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[Phys-l] Losing Heat



Sometimes I get a feeling of senility. I read the following from my browser:

"In the second paper, the same research team suggests that a quantum particle (such as an electron) interacting strongly with a reservoir of particles may violate the Clausius inequality--one formulation of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that it is impossible to do work without losing heat. What the researchers term "appalling behavior" can be traced to the quantum mechanical property of entanglement, in which a quantum particle (such as an electron) is so strongly interlinked with another particle or group of particles that the resulting behavior cannot be treated by standard thermodynamic approaches."

What did I miss here? Does the 2nd Law say that I can't "do work" without "losing heat"??? What does this mean? Perhaps I am having a senior moment.




J M Green
Email: MailTo:JMGreen@sisna.com
WWW: HTTP://users.sisna.com/JMGreen