Probing the Limits: Collected Works on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Special Relativity

This book brings together the chief results of the research work carried out by the author on the second law of thermodynamics and the theory of special relativity since 2008. The first six chapters are devoted to the research on the epistemological status of the second law of thermodynamics and the connection between thermionic/photoelectric phenomena and the second law: evidence is provided that thermionic emission could, in principle, violate the second law. More precisely, the photoelectric emission induced by the high-frequency tail of black-body radiation at room temperature (heat) can be harnessed to charge a capacitor and provide readily usable energy from a single heat reservoir. Chapter 7 contains some reflections on special relativity. It is the most speculative part of the book and it has not been published elsewhere. Two thought experiments on time dilation in the framework of special relativity are presented. The main contention in this part of the book is that if both postulates of special relativity are assumed to hold concurrently, then the prediction of asymmetric ageing made by Einstein in his 1905 relativity paper appears to be in fact incompatible with them and the fact that time dilation (which is intimately related to "asymmetric ageing") seems to have been experimentally confirmed provides, paradoxically, a refutation rather than a confirmation of the theory of special relativity, at least as interpreted today. A critical assessment of Purcell's basic explanation of magnetic forces, which basically relies on special relativity, is also given at the end of the book.