Content about “

statistical mechanics

”

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.

Entropy is the hero of our story – bringing together physics at every scale.

Come on a fantastic journey from some of our oldest ideas about physics to the biggest mystery of the modern age!

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

If it's moving and shaking you need kinetic theory!

Bridging the gap between the microscopic snd the macroscopic.

Complex systems go! The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Mathematicians explore how opinions spread through a society.

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

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?

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.