Scientists experimentally demonstrate 140-year-old prediction: A gas in perpetual non-equilibrium

(Phys.org)--In 1876, the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann noticed something surprising about his equations that describe the flow of heat in a gas. Usually, the colliding gas particles eventually reach a state of thermal equilibrium, the point at which no net flow of heat energy occurs. But Boltzmann realized that his equations also predict that, when gases are confined in a specific way, they should remain in persistent non-equilibrium, meaning a small amount of heat is always flowing within...