Physics

The second law of thermodynamics underlies nearly everything. But is it inviolable?

Two centuries on, scientists are still searching for a proof of its universal validity

Art of four eggs, from left to right, getting progressively more cracked. In the far right egg, it's cracked to the point the yolk is slipping out.

Once an egg is cracked, you can’t put it back together, a phenomenon that may be explained by the second law of thermodynamics.

Sam Green

By Tom Siegfried

In real life, laws are broken all the time. Besides your everyday criminals, there are scammers and fraudsters, politicians and mobsters, corporations and nations that regard laws as suggestions rather than restrictions.