Студент из Массачусетса обнаружил состояние, нарушающее законы термодинамики

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: - The Laws of Thermodynamics explain interactions among components in a system, including emulsification of liquids. - A new surprising finding is that two immiscible liquids, when influenced by magnetized particles, will flout these established laws. - The authors of this finding admit that this discovery has no practical use (as of right now) but is a never-before-seen state in soft-matter physics. As Homer Simpson once famously phrased, “in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics,” but a completely unexpected discovery by a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst runs afoul of Homer's rule. The Laws of Thermodynamics describe the relationship of temperature, energy, and entropy in a system as well as how components of a system interact. Take emulsification for instance. This process describes how two otherwise unmixable (or immiscible) substances can combine into a homogeneous mixture. The oil in peanut butter, for example, naturally separates, forming a top layer that needs to be mixed in. However, some companies add substances known as “emulsifiers” to keep this separation from occurring. The interaction of these components in a system can all be described by the Laws of Thermodynamics. “Imagine your favorite Italian salad dressing,” UMass Amherst’s Thomas Russell, senior author of a 2025 paper published in the journal Nature Physics, said in a press statement. “It’s made up of oil, water and spices, and before you pour it onto your salad, you shake it up so that all the ingredients mix.” This is emulsification in action. That very same process got strange, though, when in a Amherst laboratory, Anthony Raykh, a graduate student, mixed a batch of immiscible liquids along with magnetized nickel particles. Instead of mixing together as expected (shown below), the mixture formed what the authors describe as a Grecian urn shape. After turning to professors for answers as well as collaborating with scientists at nearby Syracuse University and Tufts University, Raykh discovered thanks to detailed simulations that when magnetism influencing the two liquids is strong, it can bend the boundary of the liquids into a curve and disrupt the emulsification as described by the laws of thermodynamics. No matter how hard you shook the magnetized mixture, the liquids eventually formed this same shape. “When you look very closely at the individual nanoparticles of magnetized nickel that form the boundary between the water and oil,” says Hoagland, “you can get extremely detailed information on how different forms assemble. In this case, the particles are magnetized strongly enough that their assembly interferes with the process of emulsification, which the laws of thermodynamics describe.” Raykh admits that this discovery doesn’t immediately have any practical applications, but it is a never-before-seen state that could expand the field of soft-matter physics. Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.