---
title: Second Law of Thermodynamics can be violated
date: "2002-07-20T12:00:00Z"
categories:
  - links
wp_id: 1273
description: Scientists demonstrated that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can be violated at the micrometer scale for fractions of a second. This discovery has significant implications for the efficiency limits of nanotechnology and microscopic heat engines.
keywords: [thermodynamics, entropy, nanotechnology, statistical mechanics, physics, microscopic engines]
---

For a few tenths of a second, at the micrometer level, the Second law of Thermodynamics [can be violated](http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992572). The interesting thing is that it happens at such a large scale.