At first, the atoms rapidly progressed toward thermal equilibrium, then switched to a slower advance, Lev and colleagues report in a paper published May 2 in Physical Review X. Science News ...

But, until now, systems far from thermal equilibrium couldn't be analyzed with conventional thermodynamics and statistical physics. Skip to main content. Your source for the latest research news.

Thermal equilibrium is not a purely energy phenomena. Energy is conserved when two objects reach thermal equilibrium, but it would also be satisfied if one object got hot and the other one became ...

As particles interact, these systems often evolve towards thermal equilibrium, where the system is equally likely to be found in any configuration with the same total energy. However, in some cases, ...

THE temperature of the cosmic microwave background – the radiation bathing all of space – is remarkably uniform. It varies by less than 0.001 degrees from a chilly 2.725 kelvin.