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Callen's Adiabatic Piston and the Limits of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Bruno Crosignani, Paolo Di Porto, Claudio Conti

physics.class-pharXiv:physics/0410050

Abstract

The limits of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which reigns undisputed in the macroscopic world, are investigated at the mesoscopic level, corresponding to spatial dimensions of a few microns. An extremely simple isolated system, modeled after Callen's adiabatic piston, [1] can, under appropriate conditions, be described as a self-organizing Brownian motor and shown to exhibit a perpetuum mobile behavior.

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