{"id":243806,"date":"2026-09-09T01:21:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T06:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/physicists-find-useful-energy-hiding-in-quantum-waste-heat"},"modified":"2026-09-09T01:21:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T06:21:02","slug":"physicists-find-useful-energy-hiding-in-quantum-waste-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/physicists-find-useful-energy-hiding-in-quantum-waste-heat","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Find Useful Energy Hiding in Quantum \u201cWaste Heat\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/physicists-find-useful-energy-hiding-in-quantum-waste-heat2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>A new theoretical approach helps connect quantum physics with classical thermodynamics by clarifying what counts as heat and useful work in tiny quantum machines.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When a machine is reduced to a single atom and particles of light, even basic concepts such as heat and useful work become difficult to define. This problem sits at the intersection of thermodynamics and quantum physics, and researchers at the <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/tag\/university-of-basel\/\">University of Basel<\/a> in Switzerland have developed a theoretical framework that brings the two descriptions into agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Thermodynamics and quantum physics emerged to explain very different scales of nature. Thermodynamics took shape in the 19th century to describe machines such as steam engines, while quantum physics arose in the early 20th century to explain atoms and subatomic particles. Modern quantum technologies now bring those worlds together because tiny systems built from atoms and light particles (photons) can absorb, transform, and release energy, effectively operating as miniature quantum machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new theoretical approach helps connect quantum physics with classical thermodynamics by clarifying what counts as heat and useful work in tiny quantum machines. When a machine is reduced to a single atom and particles of light, even basic concepts such as heat and useful work become difficult to define. This problem sits at the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}