Monday, July 04, 2005

The 2nd law

A couple of researchers in Shanghai claim to have disproved the 2nd law of thermodynamics. For the scientifically unitiated, the 2nd law is science's version of "there is no such thing as a free lunch", and basically says you can't get useful energy out of a fuel without creating some waste. Xinyong Fu and Zitao Fu no longer believe this to be true.

Quickly - somebody tell Mr Blair and Mr Bush that their climate change problems are now officially solved and they can at least rescue something from this fiasco that will be the G8 submit in Edinburgh this week. In curing the world's energy crisis they will minimise the transient media exposure of our collective failure to make poverty history.

On second thoughts, having scanned the paper, it might be as well not to have our esteemed leaders counting too many energy chickens just yet. This one will be heading for urban legend status in the none too distant future I should think.

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