A microscopic diving board can cheat the second law of thermodynamics

A microscopic version of a diving board has been driven to cheat the second law of thermodynamics 95 per cent of the time. The finding doesn’t challenge the validity of the law, but underscores how different the rules of the microscopic world can be.

The behaviour of our world is constrained by this physical law. Among other things, it sets the minimum energy expended for changing the state of something, such as putting an idle motor into a steady and controlled state of motion.

But everything is different when…