Annoyingly tiny fridges may not be restricted to hotels or dorm rooms much longer. A new study proposes a way to construct the smallest refrigerator yet, capable of cooling to near absolute zero.rnThe study, to appear in an upcoming Physical Review Letters, pushes the limits of how small a cooling device can get.rn"When thermodynamics was first invented, it was applied to big, steam engine sorts of things," says physicistrnTony Short of the University of Cambridge in England. "The fact that you can bring the ideas all the way down to individual quantum systems of tiny dimensions and the same basic ideas still work is quite nice."
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