9. Leonardo Chiatti, Has the Second Law of Thermodynamics Really Been Violated?

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Volume 20: Pages 610-616, 2007

Has the Second Law of Thermodynamics Really Been Violated?

Leonardo Chiatti 1

1ASL VT Medical Physics Laboratory, Via San Lorenzo 101, 01100 Viterbo, Italy

Some works have appeared in the recent accredited literature considering the possibility of macroscopic violations of the second law in simulated as well as actually executed experiments. We argue the inexistence of such violations in experiments based on the socalled nonbias diode, demonstrating that the interpretation of the authors is flawed by a confusion between the concepts of thermal equilibrium and thermodynamic equilibrium. We also discuss an isomorphic experimental setup based on the evaporationcondensation of a liquid in a closed atmosphere. Some critical observations are then made concerning recent attempts to reformulate classical equilibrium thermodynamics.

Keywords: thermodynamic equilibrium, violations of the second law, nonbias diode

Received: March 3, 2007; Published Online: October 7, 2009