When French engineer Sadi Carnot calculated the maximum efficiency of a heat engine in 1824, he had no idea what heat was. In those days, physicists thought heat was a fluid called caloric. But Carnot ...

Physicists in the Netherlands have built a heat engine that might be the tiniest ever created. Based on “piezoresistive” silicon, and smaller than a typical biological cell, the engine could find ...

Nelson Ireson June 6, 2008 Comment Now! Novel technologies to improve the efficiency of existing vehicles and combustion processes are the quickest route to improved fuel mileage. Hybrid cars are ...