It’s a negative on negative absolute temperatures
The concept of a perpetual motion machine is an enticing one: Imagine a machine that runs continuously without requiring any external energy — a feat that could make refueling vehicles a thing of the past. While a perpetual motion machine inspires appealing possibilities, most scientists agree that such a machine is impossible, as the very concept — doing work without any energy input — defies the laws of thermodynamics. Nevertheless, some researchers have forged ahead with efforts to create systems resembling perpetual motion at microscopic scales, including spin systems and ultracold quantum gas, which have suggested that perpetual motion machines may be more than pie-in-the-sky notions. But now, mathematicians at MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics have challenged these ideas with equations showing that such systems, while innovative, do not illustrate the dynamics of perpetual motion. The main claim of such experiments is that they are able to...