One famous limit of thermodynamics is that heat engines, like steam engines and internal combustion engines, must be less efficient than a Carnot heat engine (a heat engine cycle designed by French ...

Thermoelectrics using nanostructures offers the potential of getting very close to the carnot limit of efficiency using very light weight systems for convert heat to electricity. Early versions of ...

One of the greatest inventions is the steam engine. But why? One of the greatest inventions is the steam engine. But why? What makes it so useful? And how does it work? In this episode of Crash Course ...

ON p. 326 of NATURE for August 29 appears an abstract of a paper by Dr. J. S. Haldane, which he read before the Institution of Mining Engineers on June 16. In this paper he has “thrown to the winds” ...

THE cycle proposed by Dr. J. S. Haldane (NATURE, August 29, p. 326) as a standard of comparison for steam engine performance can be shown quite readily on a temperature-entropy chart, and thus be ...