The theory of thermodynamics, commonly associated with
the steam engines of the 19th century, is a universal set of laws
that governs everything from black holes to the evolution of life.
But with modern technologies miniaturizing circuits to the atomic
scale, thermodynamics has to be put to the test in a completely new
realm. In this realm, quantum rather than classical laws apply. In
the same way that thermodynamics was key to building classical
steam engines, the emergence of quantum circuits is forcing us to
reimagine this theory in the quantum case.
