Previous warning. The Russian mathematician Vladimir Arnold said, "no one understands a Thermodynamics course," and this quote is repeated, every year, by Professor José María Martín Olalla to his students at the University of Seville. If understanding a Thermodynamics course is difficult, imagine understanding, in a single page, the laws of Thermodynamics or the concept of entropy. It's impossible to say the least.
But this is not about giving a master class or writing a scientific article. This is the story, much simpler and perfectly understandable, of how a Sevillian professor has a lightbulb moment one day while writing a book for his students, and comes up with how to prove a theory that had been on his mind for over twenty years and how in doing so refutes, nothing more and nothing less, than probably the most famous physicist in history, the German (of Jewish origin) Albert Einstein.
Starting with the end, Martín Olalla has just returned, so to speak, from the set of La Revuelta, one of the programs competing in Spanish prime time television, where he was interviewed by David Broncano, and he is still digesting (although it doesn't seem to bother him much) the media attention he has garnered. In his office, on the fourth floor of the Faculty of Physics, he has within reach a 1924 copy, in English, of his colleague Walther Nernst's book, The new heat theorem.
This physicist, also German, enunciated his famous Nernst Theorem in 1905, an experimental observation of a general nature that establishes that entropy exchanges tend to zero when the temperature is at absolute zero. Just eight years later, in 1913, at the Salvay Congress (Belgium), Einstein challenges the postulates of his comrade questioning some of his concepts, even the very possibility of their existence.
Until now, no one had dared to refute Einstein's refutation, it was a "closed page", explains Martín Olalla while trying (with little success due to the listener) to make a discipline that most people find difficult to grasp, intelligible.
This is not the case for this Doctor in Physical Sciences, who has been teaching since 1992 and discovered Physics (and became fascinated by it) while observing the stars with a telescope he received as a child and still keeps, after watching every single episode of the documentary series Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
Suffice it to say, without complicating matters, that Professor Martín Olalla has managed to simplify the fundamentals of Thermodynamics and refute Einstein while vindicating Nernst at the same time.
In his notes for this course, even before receiving the approval of the reviewers of The European Physical Journal Plus (the process has taken over a year), he already included the results of his study, and his students were the first to know them. Even without knowing that their exam material included a refutation of none other than Einstein.
But it's not that big of a deal, says this Thermodynamics expert. Yes, he explains, "one could say that I have corrected Einstein," but, after all, he explains, that's what science is about, evolving from the findings of others.
Media and Academic Impact
Martín Olalla does not question the genius status of the German physicist who discovered the Theory of Relativity, but he also doesn't believe in mythologizing him. "Einstein is not infallible just because he is Einstein, he made mistakes in many things," he asserts.
He himself adds, he has made mistakes on multiple occasions "and it is likely that someone will come along refuting my thesis." In fact, for now, the academic significance of his proposition is infinitely smaller than the media impact, but the measures of time are not comparable. That he has corrected Einstein -"it is not an exaggeration"- is also not "the most remarkable thing." Although he is aware of the appeal such a headline has.
If that serves to spark someone's interest in science, in Thermodynamics, in absolute zero -reached at minus 273 degrees Celsius- or in the concept of entropy, it's worth it, he points out.
Because Physics, like science in general, acknowledges, is going through "complicated times." Physics itself is a "complicated discipline that should not be sugarcoated," it requires abstraction and therefore generates so much rejection.
But at the same time, he defends its utility: "It saves and improves people's lives."
Martín Olalla defines physics as "natural philosophy" to "understand how the world is, observe, understand, and predict." And to preach that, it's worth correcting Einstein.
A Mediator Between Nernst and Einstein
The Nernst Theorem ---an experimental observation of a general nature presented in 1905 that establishes that entropy exchanges tend to zero as the temperature tends to zero--- has been directly linked to the second law of thermodynamics in a work authored solely by Professor Martín Olalla.
In addition to solving a problem posed 120 years ago, the demonstration represents an extension of the consequences linked to the second law of thermodynamics --the principle that establishes the increase of the universe's entropy--.
The problem of Nernst's theorem arose at the beginning of the 20th century when the general properties of matter at temperatures close to absolute zero (273 degrees below zero) were studied. Walther Nernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1920 for these studies.
As an explanation of his results, Nernst argued that absolute zero had to be inaccessible because, otherwise, it would be possible to build a machine that, using absolute zero as a coolant, would convert all heat into work, which would go against the principle of increasing entropy. Thus, he proved his theorem in 1912.
Immediately after, Einstein refuted this demonstration by pointing out that this hypothetical machine could not be built in practice and, therefore, could not question the validity of the principle of increasing entropy. Thus, Einstein dissociated the theorem from the second law of thermodynamics and associated it with a third principle, independent of the second. This idea is now refuted.
In the presented demonstration, Professor Martín Olalla introduces two nuances that "were omitted by Nernst and Einstein," the formalism of the second law of thermodynamics requires, on the one hand, the existence of the machine imagined by Nernst, and, on the other hand, it imposes that this machine be virtual; the machine does not consume any heat, does not produce any work, and does not question the second law.
The combination of both ideas allows us to "conclude that entropy exchanges tend to zero as the temperature tends to zero (which is Nernst's theorem) and that absolute zero is inaccessible," as detailed by the University of Seville.
Martín Olalla has pointed out that "a fundamental problem in thermodynamics is distinguishing the sensation of temperature, the sensations of hot and cold, from the abstract concept of temperature as a physical magnitude."
In the discussion between Nernst and Einstein, temperature was only an empirical parameter, the condition of absolute zero was represented by the condition that the pressure or volume of a gas approached zero. Formally, the second law of thermodynamics provides a more concrete idea of what the natural zero of temperature is. "The idea is not related to any sensation, but to that machine imagined by Nernst but which has to be virtual. This radically changes the approach to the demonstration of the theorem," he added.
The study points out that the only general property of matter near absolute zero that cannot be related to the second law of thermodynamics is the annulment of heat capacities, also compiled by Nernst in 1912. However, Martín Olalla proposes a different formalization: "The second law contains the idea that entropy is unique at absolute zero. The annulment of specific heats only adds that this unique value is zero. It seems more like a footnote, important, than a new principle."