Content about “
statistical mechanics
”

Article

Kinetic theory: Taming multitudes

Kinetic theory bridges the gap between the big and the small to understand systems made up of many components: from plasmas to people.
Podcast

When worlds collide

Fields medallist Cédric Villani talks to us about our solar system, chaos, and what it's like being a mathematical superstar.
Article

Satanic science

There's no doubt that information is power, but could it be converted into physical energy you could heat a room with or run a machine on? In the 19th century James Clerk Maxwell invented a hypothetical being — a "demon" — that seemed to be able to do just that. The problem was that the little devil blatantly contravened the laws of physics. What is Maxwell's demon and how was it resolved?
Article
puzzle

The puzzle of time

Why does time only ever move in one direction? We talk to philosophers of physics Jeremy Butterfield and David Wallace, as well as the eminent Roger Penrose about the puzzle time poses to physicists and what it has to do with the Big Bang and the second law of thermodynamics.

Article
Origami cranes in a circle in rainbow colours

Folding the future: From origami to engineering

Remember how hard it was to fold maps? Mathematicians have struggled with map folding problems for ages but a recent insight suggests there might be another way to approach them, making an unlikely connection between combinatorics, origami and engineering.

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