noun
Meaning 1
An apparent perpetual motion machine, the subject of a thought experiment, that would consist of a tiny paddle wheel and a ratchet, and might seem to be able to extract useful work from random fluctuations (heat) in a system at thermal equilibrium, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: natural-sciences, physical-sciences, physics
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: Feynman-Smoluchowski ratchet
Antonyms: none provided