Uncertainty Principle and the Second Law

[Suwailem]

For those who read carefully the paper by Esther Hänggi and Stephanie Wehner: "A violation of the uncertainty principle implies a violation of the second law of thermodynamics":

1. Can you elaborate how extra work can be extracted if the UP is violated?

2. Does the paper implies that uncertainty is always required for the second law to hold, including at the classical level?

 

[vanhees71]

Do you have a proper reference (or even a DOI) for that paper?

 

[Cthugha]

I cannot comment on the topic, but the reference is:

Esther Hänggi & Stephanie Wehner, "A violation of the uncertainty principle implies a violation of the second law of thermodynamics", Nature Communications 4, 1670 (2013), doi:10.1038/ncomms2665

Or simply look here (if you have Access to Nature Communications): http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n4/full/ncomms2665.html

 

[atyy]

A free version of the paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6894.

 

[Suwailem]

I think if we view entropy as uncertainty (which can be based on Shanon's measure of information), then it is obvious that uncertainty is necessary for the Second Law to hold.