Experimental Demonstrations of Violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

为了一系列的技术目的，发明家和工程师们努力将机器、设备和引擎缩小到纳米尺寸，科学家们研究蛋白质马达，以了解它们的运作方式，希望能改变它们的生物行为。然而，根据《非平衡统计力学》（Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics）的一个新定理，缩小发动机的尺寸有一个基本限制：这种纳米机器，包括蛋白质马达，将在相当长的时间内“反向”运行，这违反了热力学第二定律。我们建议用光学镊子装置的实验来证明纳米技术中这种不可避免的操作限制。

Inventors and engineers strive to scale-down machines, devices and engines to nanometre sizes for a range of technological purposes and scientists investigate protein motors to understand their operation in hopes of modifying their biological behaviour. However, according to a new theorem in Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics, there is a fundamental limit to this scaling-down of engines: such nanomachines, including protein motors, will run in "reverse" for appreciable amounts of time and in violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We propose to demonstrate this inescapable, operational limit in nanotechnology with experiments using an Optical Tweezers apparatus.